July Heat
by William Easley
Summary: June slides into July, 2017, with the Mystery Shack busier than ever, the twins looking ahead to their eighteenth birthday in two months' time, and Grunkle Stanley up to something. I'm sure Wendip will happen along.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you._

* * *

**July Heat**

(June-July 2017)

* * *

**1: The Day After Summerween**

The Saturday following Summerween was hellish—tourists swarmed in, no longer an orderly, quiet, queueing crowd, but a mob of boisterous, roisterous, rambunctious, slam-dunktious . . . you know what, they were loud, rude, and unruly, leave it like that.

And so_ many_ of them flooded in!

Grampas and Nanas, moms and dads, babes in arms and babes who probably were carrying concealed arms, pre-teens and post-teens and teens in-between—it was enough to make Dipper dizzy, Mabel muddled, and a narrator prone to weird rhymes and alliterations.

Soos thought that the _Ghost Harassers _episode explained it all, and possibly it did. It was true that the brief few seconds of footage featuring the Invisible Wizard—Dipper's doing, that—had gone wildly viral since the show's debut. It was also unfortunately true that Dipper's name, while attached to most of the technically illegal uploads of the bit to MeTube, had been repeatedly mangled and remangled: Dipster Pint, Dipman Pins, and—this one he discovered retranslated into English from a Japanese uploader—Ladle Trees.

The footage, not clear to begin with—Dipper had deliberately sent in only the first-stage-filter shot of the closet and its inhabitant, since a clearer picture made it look, well, goofy—had lost sharpness and resolution as it was uploaded, downloaded, copied, and re-uploaded countless times.

People had used photo editors to draw in outlines of what they thought the images showed—ranging from a kind of green Santa Claus to an enormous pile of cow poop, from a Muppet-like critter ("yo," that uploader had written, "its a sok pupett an the clawset is like FAKE yall, probly make outa a shoebox") to a truly monstrous alien horror ("The abominations of the End Times are appearing among us").

That was just the beginning. The week before the Fourth of July had always been one of the Shack's busiest of the year, and this summer was no exception—well, it was, attendance had like quintupled since Stan's day, but even taking the increased patronage into account, it looked as though this year records would be shattered.

Stan, who showed up yawning on Saturday to perform Mr. Mystery in the Museum while Soos drove tram tours down the Mystery Trail and back, began the day when he startled Dipper at breakfast by telling Soos, "Oh, yeah, before I forget—I won't be here next week. Probably I'll be back before the Fourth—when is it this year?"

"On the Fourth of July," Mabel said helpfully. Unlike many of the Summerween party attendees, she didn't have a headache and double vision this morning—but then, she hadn't partaken of Smile Dip. She had merely made an idle wish that the punch they served had been spiked with the stuff. As she herself had once discovered on a memorable trip to a haunted convenience store, Smile Dip gave one awesome hallucinations, but coming down was a major bummer.

"I know that, Pumpkin," Stan said. "Ha! Get her! The Fourth of July comes on July Fourth! Good one, I gotta remember that."

"How is that even a joke?" Dipper asked.

"Now, what _you_ said wasn't funny," Stan told him. "Learn from your sister!"

Wendy came to everyone's rescue: "Stan, the Fourth comes a week from next Tuesday."

Soos ruminated, "You know what, dawgs? The Founding Fathers should've, like, worked it out so the Fourth of July fell on the same day of the week every year. Like Columbus did all those days he discovered Ohio."

"But—" Dipper began.

Wendy kicked him under the table—not hard, just a warning tap. "Dude, let him have this," she told Dipper softly.

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel asked, "where are you gonna be? There's nothing wrong, is there? You don't have an appointment at the Dijon Clinic, do you?"

"That's Mayo clinic," Dipper said.

"I like mustard better," she said. "Are you sick?"

Stan laughed. "Naw, I feel great. I feel like a million bucks! I feel like two and a quarter million bucks! I just got an errand outa town that might take several days."

"What are you up to?" Dipper asked suspiciously.

"None of your beeswax," Stan said smugly. "But I ain't sick, and it's nothing to worry about. You'll find out one of these days. OK, so I'll try hard to be back a week from this next Monday, 'cause that'll be the day before the Fourth, and I know you'll be slammed. I might even be back on the Friday or Saturday before, but no promises. Hey, call in Ford to be Mr. Mystery. I can't tell us apart."

"That would be a real bad idea," Wendy said. "He'd turn it into a science lecture. People would go into the Museum and not be able to get out for, like, three hours! Let Dipper do it. He's done it before."

"Yeah," Stan said with a grin. "That's right. And he looks better in the suit, tie, and eyepatch, with his hair actually combed for a change. Mabel, you still got the Dipper-sized fez?"

"Sure I do!" she said. "I may not remember the name, but I always remember the—say it with me, one, two—"

"Fez!" she and Stan said together. Mabel laughed at her own joke until milk shot out of her nose, which in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but chunks of Razzleberry Rounds came with it. At least that entertained Little Soos, who guffawed until he was sick.

* * *

Nobody was laughing by ten that morning, though—the Shack had been open for only one hour, but already everyone was looking frazzled, including the usually immaculate Gideon, who'd come in to work the second cash register. Like Dipper and Wendy, Gideon had not imbibed Smile Dip-adulterated punch, but he'd been worried sick when his girlfriend, Ulva, the werewolf, had made an unfortunate wish in the presence of a mischievous genie, and like the two of them, he'd had very little sleep.

Ulva was probably in the best shape of any of them. She'd bounced back from her short stint as a hopelessly stereotypical teenaged girl, as imagined by a hormone-laden, anime-obsessed teen guy, and she was bright-eyed and eager in her job as organizer of the gift shop. She loved putting things in order, and that morning she had fantastic chances of restoring order to chaos, and she exercised it with all the eagerness of a six-month-old puppy chasing a ball.

By noon even Stan, normally indefatigable, wore a sheen of sweat and had talked himself a little hoarse. Wendy and Dipper didn't have their normal lunch break, but snuck away—separately—for quick trips to the bathroom and a hastily-eaten snack, peanut-butter crackers or trail mix, before hustling back to the bustling gift shop.

Finally at closing time that evening—nominally six, though they had such a line that they really didn't get rid of the last tourists until six-thirty—they tallied up and Soos, who looked decidedly punchy, said, "Dudes, I hate to, like, ask this, but we gotta take a quick inventory or we're gonna run out of stock next week. If I order online today, we can get it in by Wednesday. I'll pay you guys extra."

Ulva, who could tell him almost exactly what had been bought and how many of each, volunteered. Mabel made up an excuse—"I gotta wash Tripper's hair"—but Wendy and Dipper sighed and pitched in. Luckily, with Ulva's help it took only one more hour. Normally every Saturday night, Teek took Mabel out and Dipper and Wendy had a date night, but that night—"I'm dead on my feet," Dipper muttered.

"Same here," Wendy said with a wide yawn. "Hey, Soos! Let's just order pizza and call that dinner."

"Pizza!" Little Soos crowed. "Papa, I love pizza!"

"You got it, Wendy dude!" Soos said. "Stan, I mean Mr. Pines, you want to stay with us for pizza?"

"Nah," Stan said, stretching. "Me and Sheila will eat out somewheres, if she'll drive. I got carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists for some reason."

They ordered pizzas from Pizza Pizzazz, a recently-opened shop, and Dipper marveled at how many slices of cheese pizza Little Soos put away. It was clear that he took after his dad in one way, at least.

At dinner, Little Soos sat on his dad's knee as Soos said, "Hey, son, did I ever tell you about this one time when I got like a slice of Infinite Pizza? I mean, you took a big bite, and boom! It grew right back again, dawg! Only later I ran across this starving guy and gave it to him, and he lived. True story."

"Awesome," Little Soos probably said. It was hard to tell, since he had a mouthful of crust and mozzarella at the time.

After dinner, Dipper, Wendy, and—under protest—Mabel did the minimal clean-up, and then Teek showed up to take Mabel to the movies. "Wanna go, too?" Mabel asked Dipper. "It's a Transformers movie!"

"No, thanks," Dipper said. "I just want to rest."

"I know what you need!" Mabel said.

"No Smile Dip," Wendy said firmly. "Seriously, Mabes, you should ditch that stuff. It's nothing but trouble."

"I wasn't going to say that," Mabel replied with dignity. "You two need a movie night here. Pop yourselves some popcorn and chill out in the parlor."

She had a point. The Ramirez children and Abuelita all went to bed super early—by 8:30, most of the time—and Soos and Melody preferred watching TV in their bedroom, so the parlor was free.

Wendy popped a big bowlful of popcorn, they buttered it just right, not too little, not too much, and then they piled quilts and blankets on the floor, so they could either lie back or else sit with their backs against the sofa, and then settled in for the Saturday Night Shocker, a Gravity Falls tradition. That night it was _The Monster Robot from the Robot Planet who is Also Part Gorilla. _It didn't star Chadley and Trixandra, but it was just as cheesy.

"So how come the robot has the body of a gorilla?" Wendy asked.

Reaching for popcorn, Dipper told her, "I think when they rented the costume, the shop was out of robot bodies and gorilla heads, so they did a mix-and-match."

"Sounds logical."

A few minutes into the film, Dipper said, "Wait, wait. This is a monster robot from the robot planet, but he lives in a cave on the moon? How does that compute?"

"Yeah, and why does the moon have trees in the background? And I think I see a highway down there with cars."

"And am I mistaken, or is the death ray like one of those machines that blows soap bubbles?" Dipper asked.

It developed, probably—the movie plot was admittedly a little hard to follow—that the RoboMan, as the robotic gorilla was named, was on a mission to exterminate all human life on Earth. He somehow transported to Earth and wandered around aimlessly with a ray gun that looked like a shampoo bottle with a handle glued on, randomly firing it. It produced a deadly ray that looked as though someone had squiggled lines on the film negative with a grease pencil.

And though the people in the shots never once appeared on screen at the same time or place as RoboMan, they were slaughtered. Apparently. A shot would show some teens jiving outside a malt shop—though, the film having been made in 1953, a few of the teens looked like World War II vets already eligible for Social Security—when suddenly the grease-pencil ray would come from offscreen, and they all would collapse.

Not simultaneously, but raggedly, with the girls typically collapsing by sitting down gingerly. And then the screen would go dark for a moment, and when the picture came back, the sidewalk would be empty. An offscreen narrator who seemed to show up whenever he staggered through the studio pronounced, "The Choloinator Ray not only killed its victims, it dissolved the bodies!"

Wendy carried on the message: "Housewives, if you're tired of cleaning up those messy dead bodies after your dinner parties, get the Choloinator Ray now! It comes in six designer colors!"

Dipper chuckled. "You know, Grunkle Stan could sell that!"

By the third act, in which RoboMan was taking on the U.S. Armed Forces (they seemed to be represented by six guys clad in uniforms that were mismatched—an Air Force jacket, a Marine Corps helmet—two of whom, as Wendy pointed out, had already died twice), he called in the Robo Reserves, which consisted of dinosaurs in footage obviously recycled from films shot in previous decades.

Somehow, the monsters were defeated, offscreen, and in the end the love interest—a guy and a girl who had only come into the movie in the last fifteen minutes—embraced. "Oh, Chuck," the girl said.

Wendy called out, "His name is Chris! The actor is Chuck!"

"Yes, Wandine?" Chris/Chuck said, manfully taking her into his manly arms and staring into her eyes, which apparently were invisible and three inches above the top of her head.

"I mean Chris, is this really the end?"

Chris broke the fourth wall by staring at the camera. "It really is, for now," he said. "But keep watching the skis, everyone! What? Sorry, I mean skies!"

However, the question of whether it was all over seemed far from resolved. The movie cut to the RoboMan shuffling back into his cave on the moon.

"How'd he get there?" Dipper asked. "The last we saw of him, a building fell on him in downtown Cleveland!"

RoboMan continued his slow, shuffling retreat. Wendy voiced his thoughts: "Ooh, I hate these puny human beings. They're just so mean to me. I kill them and then they're right back in the next scene. Nobody loves me. I'm going to eat a gallon of chocolate ice cream and pout!"

By then it was ten-thirty. Dipper and Wendy tidied up. Dipper stretched his stiff arms and asked Wendy, "Run tomorrow?"

"Well, we skipped this morning 'cause of the late night," Wendy said. "But tomorrow's a day off from work, so yeah, but let's do it at like eight instead of six."

"Suits me," he said.

"Let's go out on the porch."

"Huh?" he asked. "Why?"

She nudged him. "Dude, this was a movie date! You gotta kiss your girl goodnight!"

They also let Tripper out. He ran around in the grass, did his business, and nosed out snacks that the tourists had dropped. He was great at that.

He was also great at ignoring what humans were doing. Dipper and Wendy both appreciated that doggy discretion, since they were pleasantly engaged in saying goodnight.


	2. Chapter 2

**July Heat**

(June-July 2017)

* * *

**2: Sunny Day**

Back when Stanley Pines was not only Mr. Mystery, but also (as far as anyone, including his own family knew) Dr. Stanford Pines, the Mystery Shack was open six days a week, Tuesday-Sunday. Of course back then the Shack pulled in only a few hundred each week, rarely more than $1,500. These days that much would come in, usually, before noon on a single, typical summer morning.

Soos, who was faithfully Catholic, and Melody, who had been Episcopalian but who converted before marrying Soos, chose to close the Shack on Sunday. And Mondays were never much for business, anyway—tourists were generally either back home or heading that way, pockets depleted—so Soos kept up Stan's tradition of "dark Mondays." Nowadays anyone who worked for the Shack got a regular weekend off, but shifted one day, so Saturday was a workday, and the weekend was Sunday and Monday.

That hot June morning, Dipper and Wendy were grateful that it had come round at last. What with the ever-building crowds of customers and the wear and tear of Mabel's Summerween party—kids in town, who really had just the foggiest memories of it, kept telling Mabel she had to come back next summer and make the party a tradition—what with all that, Dipper and Wendy were ready to wind down.

Did I mention that it was hot? It was hot. The mercury stood at 82 at 8:00 that morning, and the weatherman direly promised that it would touch 102 before evening. The sky glared down a kind of yellowy-blue as they started out, the sun low but shining hard. They took the route down the nature trail, across the rolling hills, around Moon Trap Pond, and then back—but both of them were huffing with effort as they left the pond behind them and chugged up the first of seven hills.

"It's not only hot," Dipper complained, "it's humid!"

"Yeah," Wendy agreed. "This kind of weather, I wouldn't be surprised if a thunderstorm or two didn't roll in later on today or tomorrow. Whoosh!"

By the time they topped the seventh hill, Dipper was blinking away sweat—he and Wendy both wore headbands, but in the muggy, still air, these had already become too soaked to hold much more moisture. "Tell you what," he said. "Let's just walk back from here. I'm not on a track team any longer, and at this rate I'll be wrecked until late afternoon."

"I feel you," Wendy agreed. They reduced speed and instead of jogging, just hit the top of the Mystery Trail—though the tram really didn't run that far—at a not-quite-leisurely walk.

"At least we don't have to work today," Dipper said. Though Soos had air-conditioned the Shack, the gift shop, in its own wing, got the tail end of the cool air and when crammed with tourists, the HVAC system fought a losing battle.

They passed the Talking Rock, a standing stone that Stan and Soos both exhibited as having mysterious untranslated Native American petroglyphs on it, though in truth Stan had chiseled these on himself. He'd picked the symbols randomly out of an old encyclopedia volume. Dipper, who had a weakness for codes and ciphers, had once spent most of a week copying them down and translating them. He retranslated them and then re-retranslated. Even so, the six lines failed to cohere. The closest he'd come to making sense of it was the last line of all:

_Deer lightning hill fish moccasin sun copyright pine tree ampersand asterisk snake._

Though that too was incomprehensible, only a little less so that the other lines, Stanley had always assured tourists that the inscription meant the stone had powerful magic—fertility magic, he'd add, waggling his eyebrows.

A few steps down the trail, Wendy said, "Let's go down to the creek when we get to the bonfire clearing. We won't go skinny-dipping, 'cause there's not enough water, but we can at least go wading."

"Skinny-wading?" Dipper asked.

"Mm, never can tell," she said with a grin.

On the way, they retrieved a few stray pieces of costumes left over from the Summerween party—Pacifica, under the influence of a rogue genie wish and perhaps of Smile Dip, had led quite a few teens down there in the dark to skinny-dip, though the deepest pools in the creek were only knee-deep. Now they found a scarecrow's face—a burlap bag with holes for eyes and patches for nose and mouth painted on—along with a tiara (plastic) and three shoes, though not a matched pair.

"Pick 'em up on the way back," Wendy said, piling up the pieces at the foot of an oak. "We'll toss 'em in the Lost and Found bin, but I doubt anybody'll ever claim them."

"Still didn't find Pacifica's bra," Dipper said.

"You disappointed?" Wendy asked.

"No, I know what a bra looks like now," he said, grinning—blushing a little, but still grinning. He vividly recalled his first glimpse of Wendy's bra. He had been lying on it while they watched a TV movie. Not that she'd taken it off in his presence, just that it was laundry she hadn't got around to putting away yet, but still . . . those were the days.

"Least it's cooler in here," Wendy said as they made their way down a deeply shaded, ferny slope to the stream bed. The creek—as far as Dipper knew, it didn't have a name, though it might have been a tributary of Rock Creek or Cold Creek—trickled and tinkled over round, mossy boulders in a bed worn down over centuries.

The green-tinted shade did feel a lot cooler, and the scent of all the growing things was soothing in a way. They found the relatively level bed of—not sand, exactly, but sediment that had built up during heavy rains—that shelved into the creek, sat on a log and took off shoes and socks, and then waded in.

At first the water flowed so cold it was almost painful, but then it felt wonderful. Wendy led the way, sloshing from ankle-deep to calf-deep water before reaching the foot of a miniature waterfall, only two feet high, but strong enough to have worn a somewhat deeper basin. She bent down, scooped a double handful of water, and splashed her face. "Ahh! Refreshing. Wanna try it, man?"

"Sure," Dipper said. He bent over, putting himself in an excellent posture to be surprised when she scooped more water and tossed it into his face. He sneezed but admitted, "That does feel good!"

They wound up in a splash fight, laughing and finally hugging, their shirts soaked, their hair plastered to their foreheads. But anyway, they felt a lot cooler.

They waded back out again, gathered their shoes and socks, and then, since their feet were wet already, walked barefoot back toward the bonfire clearing. Wendy took it in stride, so to speak, but Dipper had to adjust to barefoot woods-walking—the pebbles, loam, leaves, and twigs under his soles gave him a strange crawly sensation in his stomach.

They had nearly reached the clearing when they heard a humming, and a Gnome appeared around the bend—Jeff, without his hat (a rarely-scene sight) and carrying a towel, a scrub brush, and wearing crude sandals. "Oops!" he said when he spotted them. "Don't look, don't look—there."

When they did look, he had draped the towel over his head. He might have been wearing undershorts, too, but there was no good way of telling—his beard hid a multitude of Jeff. "What are you doing?" he asked, sounding irritable. "The creek pool is my private bathing spot!"

"I thought you bathed in squirrels," Dipper said.

"Live squirrels?" Wendy asked.

"Dead ones wouldn't work, would they?" Jeff asked.

"That's kinky, dude."

"Look," Jeff said, "first, squirrels are hot, and second, they give me more of a massage than a bath! Gnomes want to be clean just like you humans do. Once a week I come down to my personal pool and take a long, relaxing bath. Except in winter."

"Why are you wearing a towel folded over your head?" Wendy asked.

"Because I'm not wearing my cap!" Jeff snapped. "Don't be pervy."

"Whatever," Dipper said. "Should we look away as you pass by?"

"If you want," Jeff said.

He rustled on past them and vanished in the ferns. "I don't think I'll ever understand Gnomes," Wendy said.

"They're different," Dipper agreed. "I nearly sneaked a peek to see whether he was wearing shorts or not."

"Nope, he isn't," Wendy said.

"You didn't!"

"I did, too. Looked like a couple of peaches."

In the clearing they sat back to back on the log with their legs stretched out, letting the air dry their feet. Once they heard two people, a guy and a girl, talking softly and giggling out on the trail, but they didn't stand up, so they didn't see who it was, and vice-versa. "Tourists?" Dipper guessed.

"Mm, I'd say not," Wendy told him. "Probably a young married couple. Maybe even an older one. The Talking Rock has that reputation, man."

"What? What reputation?"

"Well—Soos doesn't do it anymore, but Stan led people to believe—you know the story he made up about the stone, right?"

"That it was a Native American fertility idol or something," Dipper said. "But the symbols don't make sense, and anyway, he put them on it himself."

"Right, well, Stan told people that if they wanted to have a baby, they should bring a beach towel out and spread it in front of the stone and—you know—get busy."

"Out in the open?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, well, Stan did recommend they do it at night," Wendy said. "Charged 'em twenty bucks a pop. So to speak. Like I said, Soos doesn't do that, but the story took hold and now sometimes a couple wanting a kid will, you know, come out and give it a try."

They were a fair distance from the stone, but Dipper heard a woman's urgent voice yell, "Yes!"

"Sounds like they're—um, testing the theory," he said.

Wendy giggled. "You're so cute when you get all blushy." She wriggled her toes. "My feet are dry enough. Help me put on my socks so I don't get dirt on my soles?"

Dipper socked her feet, she put on her shoes, and then he sat back while she dusted the grit off his soles and put his socks on for him. "I oughta pay you back some time for the foot rubs you give me," she said as he got his sneakers back on. "Man, I gotta tell you Dipper, you're like a great boyfriend. I'm glad we gave the age thing a chance to even out!"

"Me, too," he said, taking her hand.

They might have become even more affectionate, but the unknown woman's shouts of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" distracted them. They cut through the woods, not risking coming out on the trail until they were close to the Bottomless Pit and the Talking Rock was way out of sight.

Tripper leaped off the gift-shop porch and met them. He ran across the sunny lawn, accepted their pats and assurances that he was a good boy, and then found a pool of shade—provided by the totem pole—and collapsed on his belly with his legs spread out.

Mabel was up and awake by then—Soos and his family were at Mass—and she had made some fairly successful waffles, with batter left over. Wendy and Dipper cooked up some turkey sausage, Dipper made two waffles, using up the last of the thick batter, and Mabel said, "Cook up two extra links for me! I didn't think about sausage, and that smells great!"

Wendy and Dipper had a good breakfast, Mabel had a half-breakfast to add to the one she'd already eaten, and then Mabel said, "Hey, Wen, I'm driving up to your Aunt Sallie's farm to see Waddles, Widdles, and Gompers. You two want to come?"

Wendy glanced at Dipper.

"Sure," he said. "I like Aunt Sallie. Tripper coming?"

"Oh, yeah, he wouldn't miss it! He's already called shotgun," Mabel said. "Teek's family is off visiting relatives today, so Tripper's my date."

The weather remained steamy-hot, but even so, that Sunday turned into a good, lazy day. Dipper and Wendy took showers and changed to lightweight, cool clothes, Mabel put Tripper into his car harness and safety-buckled him in, Dipper and Wendy got into the admittedly somewhat cramped back seat of Helen Wheels, Mabel's fluorescent green Carino, and with the air-conditioning dialed way high, they set off for the farm roughly twenty miles north of the Falls, Mabel taking the lead while they sang car-karaoke for the whole trip.

Nice to have a day, Dipper thought, when nothing serious or troubling happened.


	3. Chapter 3

**July Heat**

(June-July 2017)

* * *

**3: Washday**

On Sunday morning, while the kids were busy with other things, Stanley Pines sat in his home office at his desk, which he rarely used except when on the phone booking acts or planning an event, leaning back in his rolling chair with his big feet propped up and his head resting against the huge planning calendar hanging on the wall within easy consulting distance. Across from him sat a quiet, studious-looking fellow in a neatly trimmed gray beard and round rimless spectacles who had been listening intently to Stan's statement of his goal and his needs.

"So," said Stanley Pines that Sunday morning with a wave of his hand, "that's the skinny. Think you can take care of this for me?"

"Tricky," said the little man who sat on a stack of books in the chair opposite Stanley. Well, not man, exactly. And not little, at least for a Gnome, about average height for a male Gnome. Or, as he preferred, a Kobold. Kobolds, after all, are a somewhat different Scandinavian subspecies, and for a good portion of his life, Winziger Kobold had masqueraded as a Swiss Gnome.

Winziger tented his stubby fingers, looking rather like a bobblehead figure of the crooked landlord in _It's a Wonderful Life. _Behind his thick glasses, his blue eyes squinted in crafty concentration. "Let me see: currency, legitimate though unsourced. Work the deal so you don't get accused of hiding income in previous years. Process it so you can pay taxes and so forth—"

"Capital gains," Stanley said, holding up a finger. "Not straight income."

"Well, of course," said Win, who for a Gnome had an extraordinary grasp of mathematics and human—as well as monster—economics. Come to that, very few humans could compete with him in the heady world of what might be called subterranean finance. He was, after all, the head banker for the Crawl Space and its denizens. At last he pushed his specs up on his forehead, nodding thoughtfully. "Let me do some calculations."

Remarkably, he did them with an abacus and an old-fashioned crank calculator. Both of these he whipped out from beneath his jacket—unlike virtually all the other male Gnomes of Gravity Falls, Winziger wore a somewhat old-fashioned looking black and blue pin-striped business suit, very conservative. From an inner pocket he whipped out a transparent green eyeshade, donned it, and then with a face beaming with excitement and joy, got to work.

Leaning forward, Winziger set both the abacus and the adding machine on Stan's desk and made them clack and whir faster than Stan could follow. He could use computers, but preferred the older ways—faster, he said, and not so prone to error. He had earlier placed a legal pad and some sharpened pencils on Stan's desk, and without even stopping his flipping the abacus or punching the adding machine buttons, he filled up a page with notes written in Elder Futhark runes. At last he glanced up and asked, "How soon do you need it?"

"Soon as possible. Say a mil, legit."

Winziger nodded, and his short Gnomish fingers did their fiduciary gavotte on the adding machine keys. _Clackety-clack, zzzt, click_. "One million. Do you mean after taxes?"

"Well, yeah." Stan said. He looked on with admiration. He always loved to see things done well, especially if something was in it for him.

"Very well," Win said, tearing off the strip of adding-machine paper and pulling off the eyeshade without disturbing the glasses perched on his forehead. He studied the figures for a moment, made a few notes, and then looked up, his normally inexpressive face lit with a broad, conspiratorial smile. "I suppose you are familiar with, ah, human games of chance?"

Stan grinned. "I got a nodding acquaintance, yeah."

"Excellent. Do you also happen to have any acquaintances in, um, the unconventional revenue field?" Win asked.

"Yeah, I do, in fact." Stan said. "Good man, smart, too. Guy older'n me. He's semi-retired and mostly legit, but he survived in a racket that few guys do, and he knows his way around, if you get my drift."

"He is familiar with gaming and gaming establishments?"

"Heck, he owns half a dozen, I think," Stan said. "Not through front men, even. He's kept a clean record. Fact, he's a respected businessman."

"Trust him?"

"No," Stan said, chuckling. "But I'm used to him."

"I'll leave it up to your discretion. With an ally like that, you can do it. The trickiest time is really the first part," Win said. "You're going to need some serious cooperation and if you can swing it, a casino's your best choice. What's your starting capital?"

Stan told him. Winziger didn't even blink. "OK, so we're shooting for less than half that as an initial increment, should be easy. Here's what you do . . . ."

Though he took no notes, Stanley listened quietly and intently. He had an excellent memory for detail, if the details added up to "ka-ching."

They talked for a few minutes, and then Winziger swept the adding machine and abacus back into his jacket, where they to all appearances vanished, and he clambered down from the chair. "This is very interesting. Thanks for the opportunity, and I'll help with the tax forms and so on," the Gnome said.

"Thanks, Mr. Kobold. I owe you," Stan said.

Win chuckled. "Not yet, but I'll bill you. Oh, Mr. Pines—"

"Stan, please."

Win polished his spectacles, which he had been wearing propped high on his forehead while doing the detail work. Stan suspected they were just there to give him a chance not to look someone directly in the eye, but maybe he was far-sighted. Chasing down some speck on a lens, Winziger murmured, "Somebody's seen to it that the feral Gnomes have been adequately fed and comfortably housed ever since last winter. Most of them have decided to join the civilized Gnome community. I hear that they'd like to thank—somebody."

"I'm sure somebody would say they're welcome," Stan said, poker-faced.

Win nodded, did not offer to shake hands—most Gnomes didn't do that—but bowed as Stan saw him out. Whew, it was hot outside already, Stan thought as he stood on the porch and watched his visitor depart. Formally attired as he was, Winziger would attract attention even in Gravity Falls, where ordinary Gnomes in their red caps, pale blue shirts, and dark blue overalls had become everyday sights.

Except—well, you can take the Gnome out of the tree, but you can't take the Gnome out of the Gnome. Winziger took fewer than a dozen steps before he just couldn't be seen. Not that he turned invisible _per se_—Gnomes didn't have that power. They did have the power of not being noticed, however.

Stan checked his watch: a few minutes past ten in the morning. He returned to his den and, out of curiosity, opened his big floor safe and assembled some stacks of currency on his desk top.

Ten thousand dollars in hundreds made a tidy little stack, a little more than two and a half inches wide, a little more than six inches long, and a shade less than half an inch thick. Pile on enough to make it a hundred thousand, and it was no more than five inches thick. Line up ten stacks of these in two rows, and it was still only thirteen inches wide, twelve and a half inches long, and five inches thick.

Heck, if they were neatly packaged and packed, you could fit two million bucks in a roomy suitcase. It would be heavy, though still light enough to pay just the basic fee if you checked it on an airliner—forty-five pounds, to be exact. Of course, you wouldn't want any customs agents looking through your luggage. . . .

For a long time Stan sat at his desk, legal pad in front of him. He doodled—not making notes of any kind whatsoever, nothing even potentially incriminating, just idle artless sketches of trees and waterfalls and such. He did it to help him think. He was a man who sometimes acted impulsively, but who tended to think things through where money was concerned.

Finally getting up and tearing off the page full of doodles—he ripped it to pieces, though it was entirely innocent, and then dropped the shreds into his trash can—Stan locked the currency in the safe again and once more checked the time. It was past eleven. His old friend Edward Pinter had always been an early riser. He was older now, but—heck, if Pinky was still asleep, he could just call back later. Pinky would have people to answer the phone for him. He dialed the number.

Somewhat to his surprise, he heard a gravelly voice that he had first heard, my God, when Stan was only twelve and Pinter was like twenty? It still sounded exactly the same as it always had: "Yah?"

"Pinky!" he said. "You old rascal, you doin' OK?"

"Stanny!" rasped the voice on the other end. "Eh, for an old fart in shootin' distance of ninety, I can't complain. I'll be a son of a gun, Stanny Pines. Long time since we talked, kid. What can I do for ya?"

"Funny you should ask that," Stan said with a grin. "Listen, you by any chance ever heard of the Medicine Lodge Casino in British Columbia?"

The old man's voice instantly became wary. "Nah, sorry, never heard of it. Uh, hang on, I gotta take another call, Stanny. I'll call ya back when I can."

Stan hung up, drummed his fingers for not more than three minutes, and then answered the ring. "OK now?" he asked.

"Yah," Mr. Edward "Fast Eddie" Pinter of Philadelphia said. "I got this line secured six ways to Sunday, and my AT guy says nobody's listenin' on your end, either."

"He works on Sundays?" Stan asked.

"He works when I need him to work. Right now he says we got twenty-four minutes for sure to talk private. I set the timer already. Now, you mentioned a legitimate business up in Canada. The institution which you mentioned, yah, in fact I do know about it. In further fact, I got an investment in it—not a majority share, but tidy, and not in my right name 'cause of international complications. Why?"

"Yeah, I'd already checked some records this past week and I figured you had a connection."

"Interesting," Pinky said. "Tell me how."

"No time right now, but arrange for a longer call and I'll tell you what holes you gotta plug to stay off the books."

"I'll arrange the call. But why were you lookin' into it, Stanny?"

"Point is, I want to move some cash around," Stanley said. "I need it to be all fresh and sparkly when it comes back to me, if you understand me. Of course, you're welcome to take a reasonable bite of it."

After a twenty-second pause, Pinky asked, "You get this money legit?"

"Pink, hand to God, it is in no way stolen. Or hot. No serial numbers on watch lists or anything like that. But a lot of moolah poppin' up at once from nowhere, you know—people ask awkward questions. I want to turn it around quick and clean, pay capital gains, the whole shmear. I know it'll cost me."

"How much we talkin'?" Pinky asked.

Stanley told him, and he heard the old man sigh with relief. "Ah, Stanny, that's peanuts, easy-peasy! Gets a little bit complicated, and like you say, you'll lose some along the way, but the casino has no obligation to report to the IRS, and the rest of it, you won't take a big hit."

"I'll gladly pay for the help, though," Stan said.

They talked terms, which proved to be reasonable—even after taxes, Stan figured, he would have a heck of a lot of money left at the clean end, a lot more than if he paid straight income tax on the amount.

"Give me until tomorrah mornin'," Pinky said. "I'll get it all set up for you."

"I appreciate the help. Pinky, what's your cut?"

"For a friend? Say two and a half per cent off the top. That's the low, low family rate, quarter of the usual minimum."

Stan nodded, grinning. "Very reasonable. Ya ever want a favor out here on the Coast, you know who to call," Stan said. "No charge so long as I don't have to put on the brass knucks."

"Brass knuckles! Ah, get out of here, ya sentimental shmuck, before you make me tear up. The bad old days are gone, ya know. Oh, Stanny, don't hang up yet—I heard your smart brother turned out not dead after all. True?"

"True," Stanley said. "Seems he did some government work, then kind of went undercover for a long, long time. But he's back, living not far from me, and doin' OK for himself."

"Government work," the old man's voice said. He sighed regretfully. "Well, what can I say? Every family has a black sheep, right? I remember him as a real smart kid. Not fun, like you, but real smart. Well, just a couple-three minutes left. Let me take some time to think, make some calls, set the deal up. I'll call ya tomorrah mornin', between—let's see, you three hours ahead or three hours behind us?"

"Three behind," Stan said. "When it's noon there, it's nine A.M. here."

"I never can remember. OK, so listen for the call between eleven and noon, your time. Hey, you got a passport?"

"Yeah, and I'm used to flying. Don't like it, but I can take it."

"So if you want to take a two, maybe four day vacation at the Medicine Lodge, do a little gambling, nothing's to stop you?"

"Nope, not a thing."

"OK, the little presidents may have to take a different route and meet you there, but I'll let you know the drill. Now, to do a good job, there's gonna be an assload of electronic transfers—like Canada to China, China to Brazil, Brazil to Luxembourg, yada yada, maybe ten, even twenty moves, but all zapped electronic, get it? And in a week, ten days at the outside, you start seein' bank transfers comin' in to your account. We'll decide on amounts when we talk. Main thing, gotta look like revenue."

"I got a business out here, licensed and everything, and we can use its accounts," Stan said. "Pines Phenomenal Promotions. I stage music concerts, festivals, that kinda thing."

"Perfect. OK, time's up, talk to you between eleven and noon. Keep well!"

"You, too," Stan said. He hung up, chuckling.

If Winziger the Gnome was right, and he was very seldom wrong, then of Stan's $2,267,800.00 in genie money—it wasn't genie bucks, either, not some phony-baloney currency but hundreds and fifties in real USA greenbacks—he could expect to net right around a million and a half after taking care of Pinky and others. And Winziger, too, of course, who wouldn't take much for his services—mostly, he just enjoyed using his talents. But the Gnome was due a reward, and though Stan could be greedy, he always took care of people who helped him.

"Shoulda been more specific about my magic money pants," Stan told himself. Yeah, the genie had produced real money for him—but where did it come from? Ford's theory was that the genie somehow vanished the bills from stashes that otherwise would never ever be found, big bales of American money moldering away in the warehouses of deceased criminal overlords and such, but whatever its origin, it was all real, none counterfeit.

Stan's immediate dilemma had been that although the dough itself was genuine, it lacked provenance. What could you do, tell the nice man from the IRS, "Yeah, this money was in a cave in the woods and I just stumbled across it?"

Oh, sure, like that would fly. "A genie conjured it up" wouldn't be any better. Not only wouldn't he be believed, he'd find it hard to access his fortune from inside a loony bin.

So because the government got nervous about magic—heck, for all Stan knew, if he claimed "genie profit," the IRS might even call in Stanford's group of playmates to check on him, and wouldn't that be nice?

Anyhow, because the IRS probably would not buy a genie's generosity as a source for so much money, Stan had realized he had to treat it as if it were dirty. So washday had arrived. With Win's and Pinky's advice, Stan was reasonably sure he could get away with legitimizing it.

Not, strictly speaking all, because sure, he'd lose a little—the tub always leaks when you're washing money. But who cared? The beauty part was that in the long run, the money truly would be completely legit. And he estimated the payout to his business account in the next month or so would be far more than he actually needed to pull off his little pet project.

And then—oh, man, this was the best of all—when the thing had been done and was over with, say in four, five years he'd be able to sell off some stuff and more than recoup his—call it an investment.

Very nice nest egg for retirement, that, together with the loot—um, no, call the stuff the objects of art and collector's items—that he'd garnered during his and Ford's trip up to the Arctic. It had been nearly five years, and supposedly Ford had pulled strings to waive the statute of limitations, but why tempt the fates, as Dipper said? Another two years, meh, it wouldn't hurt anything.

Stan left his den in his and Sheila's house. As he closed the door, he paused to pat the engraved bronze plaque that he had screwed to the wall first thing that morning:

* * *

**STANLEY F. PINES**

**JUSTICE OF THE PEACE**

**ROADKILL COUNTY**

* * *

As the legal regulations required, he now had his official premises as a J.P. Heck, he could even conduct court there if he wanted. Adjudicate minor traffic violations, hunting and fishing cases, piddling stuff not requiring a jury, misdemeanors. And other stuff that justices did.

"Man," he told his golden reflection in the metal, "money in the bank and sorta a judge, If only Dad could see me now, huh?"

He went upstairs to lunch with a good appetite.

Things were looking pretty good for Stanley Pines.


	4. Chapter 4

**4: Farm Living**

(June 25, 2017)

* * *

A geographic peculiarity meant that sometimes Gravity Falls Valley was much hotter than surrounding areas in the summer, and sometimes much colder than the same areas in the winter. The odd shape of the valley, surrounded by high cliffs with only one opening toward the east, could make the whole Valley simmer like a skillet in summer and freeze like, uh, a frozen skillet, I guess, in the winter.

The idiosyncratic microclimate has to do with wind currents, surface heating, temperature inversions, and stuff like that. Anyway, on that Sunday as Mabel drove them to Sallie Corduroy's farm, up past Morris, the temperature's rush to the top of the charts at least slowed. Whereas in the Valley (or at least at the Shack) the thermometer showed 86—still well before noon—by the time they'd passed Morris and were on the country road leading to the farm, the temperature outside the car was a mere 83.

That difference partly resulted from the difference in altitude—Morris was several hundred feet more above sea level than the Valley—and partly from a breeze that the Valley didn't feel, since the cliffs around Gravity Falls shielded it from low-level winds. When Mabel parked and busied herself with un-seat-belting Tripper, Dipper and Wendy got out. The farmhouse lacked air conditioning, except in the bedroom, but all the windows were open, the curtains stirring in the breeze.

"Now," Mabel warned, setting Tripper down beside the car, "the chickens don't like to be chased, so play nice!"

Tripper looked as if he understood. Anyway, he had visited before and liked running around the big pasture and the barnyard. A gang of Rhode Island Red hens did come out to meet Mabel, but they didn't do their normal demonstration for her—usually they practically threw a chicken parade with her, complete with brass band, or at least enough energetic clucking to remind onlookers of one, but today they had their wings slightly spread and their feathers ruffled and looked as if they would like to learn how to sweat.

"Wendy! Hello. And Dipper and Mabel," said a sharp but good-humored voice from the porch. Sallie Corduroy Bellone, a widow, tall and thin as ever, her red hair now liberally streaked with gray, stood on the porch. "Mabel, lead those fool chickens to the shady side of the barn and turn on the mister."

"Mister who?" Mabel asked.

Sallie barked with laugher. "Child! There's an outdoor spigot—faucet, you city folks call it—beside the barn, toward the front. It's hooked to a sprinkler system, only the sprinklers don't sprinkle, they mist. Hens like to cool off there on a hot day. Get them around there for me. They'll follow you. Your pigs are in the usual stall, lazing 'cause it's so blame hot."

Mabel led the clucking, shuffling hens toward the barn, while Wendy and Dipper went up to the porch to be hugged by Aunt Sallie. "You finally told Danny, I hear," she said by way of greeting.

Wendy laughed. "Well, we're tying the knot, end of August, so we kinda figured we'd better let him know."

"He told me to save the date. That is a beautiful engagement ring, Dipper."

"It's real special," Wendy said. "You wouldn't believe where the diamond came from!"

"I like the birthstones, too. It's lovely, Wendy. Well, let's not stand out here in the heat. Come in, come in."

The parlor wasn't broiling, but it wasn't exactly cool, either. "Let me turn on the ceiling fan," Aunt Sallie said. "Won't do much, but at least it'll stir up the air."

She left the light off—plenty of daylight streamed in through the open windows, anyway—and as the blades started to revolve overhead, Dipper felt some relief from the heat. "You young people—you really want me there at the wedding?" Sallie asked as she settled into her armchair.

"Yes," both Wendy and Dipper said together. They were side by side on the sofa. Wendy elbowed him. "I got this, Dip. It's not gonna be a big wedding, Aunt Sallie," she explained. "Just a few friends and family. Civil service. We've talked to Dr. Gaspell, and along in December we'll have a renewal-of-vows kinda thing in the church, and that'll be more like a formal ceremony."

"No gifts for this one," Dipper said.

"Hogwash," Sallie said cheerfully. "You know I'll give you two _something._ I've got second sight, you know. What I give you won't be expensive, and you don't even have to let anybody else know about it, but it'll be something you can use to draw good luck and chase away bad."

"That's fine, then," Wendy said. "But we don't need like furniture or pots and pans or anything like that, not yet. We'll be living in a dormitory room at college, so we won't have room for the normal stuff."

They heard Tripper yipping—not in a serious way, but more as if he were greeting his two friends Waddles and Widdles—and Sallie asked quietly, "Is Mabel going to the same college as you two?"

Dipper shook his head. "She's going to Olmsted. It's a college that specializes in art—visual arts, music and dance, theater, like that. But we'll only be a few miles away from her. Western and Olmsted are both not too far from Crescent City."

"Oh," Sallie said, nodding. "Down south of Eugene. I know where that is. Wendy, you be sure to come home and visit Danny about once a month. He won't tell you, but he's going to miss you a lot."

"We'll plan to do that," Wendy said.

"And if there is anything you two need for going off to college, you be sure and let us know."

"We're pretty well covered," Dipper said. "But thanks."

They heard steps on the front porch, and a moment later Mabel came in. "The chickens love the mister," she told Sallie. "I kept it running. Is that OK?"

"For a half hour or thereabouts," Sallie said. "Then they'll go to the coop and roost, letting their feathers dry. That cools them off too, you know. How hot's it going to be in Gravity Falls?"

"Hundred and two," Mabel said. "And about that hot tomorrow, unless we get a storm."

"Now, that was one thing I didn't like about living in Gravity Falls when we were young 'uns," Sallie said. "The summer heat. In an hour or so we'll have some lunch—cold fried chicken—not one o' mine, Mabel, I bought it in the market—with a cold vegetable salad and some trimmings, but right now, would anybody care for some lemonade?"

They were all in the mood for it, and Wendy helped her fill glasses with ice and pour the freshly-squeezed lemonade. It was great, sweet but sharp and refreshing. After a few minutes of chatting, they heard a polite scratch at the door, and Mabel let Tripper in. "Don't get in chairs or on the sofa," she warned him. He gave her an oh-please kind of glance and flopped down on the wood floor, panting but looking happy. Mabel said, "Dipper, go turn off the mister thingy. I have to make sure Tripper minds his manners."

Tripper gave a little _huff_ sound as if he mildly resented being implied to be less than a Good Dog, but Wendy said, "Come on, Dip, I'll show you where it is."

Where it was actually was pretty apparent. Beneath the deep shade of a well-trimmed poplar, fans of drifting misty water sprayed up from the sprinklers. The hens were clustered, deep red with the moisture, clucking contentedly. Waddles and Widdles had come out of the barn, too—both of them now mature hogs, Waddles only a little more massive than his daughter—and had plopped themselves down in the grass, enjoying the drift of cool water.

"Wonder where Gompers is," Dipper said as he turned the sprinklers off.

"He and the Geep are probably up in the pasture near the creek," Wendy said. "They kind of hang out there. Want to walk out and see if they're OK?"

"Sure," Dipper said. He and Wendy walked holding hands, which was nice, and once they were in the meadow the breeze picked up a little, which was also nice. Sure enough, they found both Gompers and his somewhat smaller hybrid offspring, half-goat, half-sheep, dozing on a boulder overlooking a slow, shallow stream. Gompers raised his head and obviously noticed them, but gave them only a dismissive glance. Goats and cats have a lot in common where interpersonal relations are concerned.

"This is a nice spot," Dipper said. He and Wendy sat on a rock at the edge of the creek, took off their shoes and socks, and rested their bare feet in the water. "Not as cool as the creeks in the Valley, though."

"Yeah," Wendy said. "This is nice and all—but I'm glad Dad didn't move out of Gravity Falls, like his big sister Sallie did. Man, I used to get so fed up with that place—me and my gang were kinda outsiders, you know, and the dang Valley is so bizarre it gets boring after a while—but looking back, I'm glad I grew up there instead of anywhere else. Is that mature, or am I just being sappy?"

"I don't think it's sappy," Dipper said. "I think you're lucky. See, Mabel and I grew up in Piedmont, but—somehow, I don't feel all that much attachment to it. I mean, you look at it, it's just another suburban town like a hundred others in California. Gravity Falls is quirky! And it's got you, which is its greatest advantage."

"We oughta finish up those last few dozen memory cylinders this summer," Wendy said. They had made a project of reviewing the memories stored by the Blind Eye Society over its twenty-some years of existence. A lot of times they had let the victims of the Society know about their memories. Other times, they didn't have to bother, because the people whose memories had been erased had died or moved away. And still other times, they talked it over and agreed they would be doing more harm than good, if the victims had wanted to lose the memories and if they didn't seem too impaired.

So they left Robbie Valentine serenely forgetful of the time when Rumble McSkirmish had tried to pound him, and Susan Wentworth really had no need to be reminded of the existence of Gnomes now that they were the official garbage service for Greasy's Diner. Of course, Dipper had some explaining to do when Wendy viewed Robbie's memories with him.

"Oh, dude," she said when she saw Robbie taunting a then twelve-year-old Dipper and challenging him to a fight. "Robbie could be so uncool back then!"

But she also admonished Dipper, not too harshly: "You have to be careful about letting video game characters loose, man. If it had been GTA, everybody's cars would've been stolen!"

Because of their touch telepathy, Dipper kept almost nothing secret from Wendy any longer—but when he discovered one memory cylinder labeled "Amanda Corduroy," he had debated for weeks whether to let her know about it. He finally did.

"Mom," Wendy said softly, holding the glass tube in her hand.

"I haven't looked at it," Dipper said.

"Thanks, Dip," she whispered. "We've got photos of her, but no home movies or anything. Sometimes I can barely remember what she looked like."

"If you want to watch that alone—"

Wendy bit her lip and shook her head. "Not yet, Dipper. Maybe—maybe after we get married, OK? And we'll watch it together. If it was a hurtful memory, I'll need some support."

"OK," he had said.

They had been sitting together beside the creek in silence for a few minutes when Wendy said, "You're thinking of that one of Mom's."

"Yeah," he said. "I hope it wasn't something she—you know, wanted to forget. I'm hoping it was just the dumb Society butting in again."

"We'll find out together," Wendy said. "Hey, listen!"

It was the clanging of a triangle—the call to come in for a meal—and from the enthusiastic sound of it, Mabel was the one doing the calling.

Tripper came trotting out, saw them, woofed, turned, and looked back over his shoulder expectantly.

"OK, OK, we're coming," Dipper said with a laugh. "Run back and let Mabel know we're on the way!"

Tripper yipped and sped off as Dipper and Wendy got their socks and shoes back on and started up a slope and across the pasture toward the farmhouse.

Beyond it, to the south, the sky had darkened. Clouds seemed to be piling up.

"Summer storm," Wendy said. "We probably ought to head back to the Falls soon as we have lunch and help Aunt Sallie with the dishes."

Dipper took his phone out to check the weather app. "No severe warnings yet," he said. "They do say to expect thundershowers."

But the storms were off in the distance and off in the future, and they settled around the table and enjoyed a delicious cold fried-chicken lunch, with the vegetables in a piquant vinegar-based sauce and the cold potato salad different from any Dipper had ever eaten, and yet tasty, too, and had at least a fine meal and a companionable time with Aunt Sallie as they tidied the dishes.

Before they left, she gave them two dozen eggs—fresh from the hens—one dozen for Dan, one for the Shack. Mabel put Tripper back in his harness and buckled him in, Wendy and Dipper got in the back seat of Helen Wheels, and once she was behind the wheel, Mabel said, "Hey, Dip—we're a little bit low on gas. OK to get some at the NorWesCo station in Morris?"

"Sure," Dipper said.

"OK if you pay for it?"

"I've got the cash," he said.

Wendy asked, "Mabes, don't you ever carry money?"

"Not if I can help it," Mabel said as she started the car. "It just complicates everything!"


	5. Chapter 5

**5: Girl to Girl**

(June 25, 2017)

* * *

The rain—big, heavy plops—started to fall when they were still a few miles north of the road into the Valley. "Shoot," Mabel complained, switching on the wipers. "It could've waited until we got home."

Tripper, though very smart, was dog enough to be mesmerized by the whap-whap of the windshield wipers. About every sixth stroke, one of them squeaked, and he always barked to make it stop. That got a little monotonous. "Better slow down, Sis," Dipper advised. "This is getting heavier, and you know how the highway gets covered in runoff."

"No backseat driving!" Mabel snapped, but she did slow the car. By then she leaned forward, frowning into the gray curtains of driving rain. A bolt of lightning sizzled overhead, and the car rocked with the thunder. Tripper whined and cringed.

"It's OK, boy," Dipper said from the back.

"Explain to him how the tires insulate the car," Mabel said irritably.

"That's not what happens," Dipper said. "The car frame acts like a Faraday cage. It's not the tires. But being in a car is safer than being outside in a storm."

"Got the nerd talk?" Mabel asked. By now the Carino crept along at twenty miles an hour, unheard of for her unless she was in a parking garage.

"What's wrong, Mabes?" Wendy asked.

"I'm . . . a little bit scared," Mabel confessed.

"Want me to drive?"

"No, I'm good. I'm good. There's the turn-off."

"Dipper said, "Be sure the headlights are on—"

"They're on, they're on!" Mabel said. She started the turn, but Wendy unbuckled her seatbelt, lunged forward in the gap between the front seats, got her hand on the wheel, and turned hard right.

An instant later, a heavy truck, its horn blaring, roared past only inches from Helen Wheels, sending a foamy wash of water up over the windshield.

"Now turn, quick," Wendy said, falling back into place.

Mabel turned, but she drove onto the shoulder and sat shaking. "I nearly killed us all, didn't I?"

Tripper yipped "Yep!"

Swallowing hard, Mabel said, "Uh, Wendy-?"

"Let's trade places on three," Wendy said. "We'll get wet, but can't help that. One, two, three!"

Both girls opened their doors, jumped out, dodged each other, and clambered back into the car. Mabel's hair was plastered down, and she swiped it out of her eyes. "Sorry, Brobro."

"It's OK," Dipper said, having finally regained the ability to speak. "The semi was going way too fast for conditions."

"I didn't even see it!"

Wendy said, "I just caught the headlights, comin' on fast. Sorry if I scared you."

"You saved my life, I think," Mabel said. "Thanks."

Wendy put the car in gear and drove ahead. They passed through the gap in the cliffs and into the Valley. If anything, the rain intensified. "This wasn't in the forecast," Wendy muttered.

"You predicted it, though, when we were running this morning," Dipper said.

"Yeah, rain. Didn't think we'd get a storm this bad."

They started to hear sharp _pong! _sounds and sudden, startling _cracks!_ "Now what?" Mabel asked.

"Hail. Hang on, I'll get us out of it and we'll wait until it slacks." Wendy turned off the highway at a roadside picnic spot. Three canopied sites sheltered two tables. The third was just a concrete pad, no table, but it did have a canopy over it. Wendy crept the car under the cover, and suddenly it was quieter. Oh, the rush of rain outside sounded like the Falls when the snowpack was melting, but at least the car was out of the drumming of rain and pounding of hail.

"How come you knew about this?" Mabel asked.

"Dad got the contract to build these shelters. I knew this one didn't have the table or benches installed yet. Dad's crew will do that this week—but not in a storm like this."

Though the rain poured and ice, in the form of hail, littered the ground, the inside of the car grew stuffy. Mabel opened the door and got out.

"Careful," Dipper said. "This place isn't protected from lightning."

"It's not as bad as it was," Mabel yelled back. "I need some fresh air."

Wendy rolled down the windows. "Better, Dip?"

"It's OK," he said.

Mabel came around and let Tripper out of the passenger seat. "He may need to go potty," she said. "OK, boy, if you have to go, go under the shelter. I'll clean up after you."

Tripper did, directing his little contribution to the puddles off the edge of the concrete pad. Wendy, watching, said, "That is really a smart dog."

"I worry about that sometimes," Dipper said.

Mabel heard. "You worry about _everything_!"

"Hail's stopped," Wendy said. "And the rain's lighter. Want to try for the Shack?"

"You drive," Mabel said. She opened Dipper's door. "Broseph, you go ride shotgun and let Tripper ride back here with me."

Dipper had no objection. Wendy carefully reversed from under the shelter and turned back onto the highway. Though the rain was definitely lighter, cascades of runoff flowed like shallow creeks across the road, sweeping leaves and twigs with them, and the tires rumbled now and then as they hit pine cones or even rocks that had been washed out onto the asphalt. Very little traffic in town—people who were shopping had probably battened down in the stores, waiting out the weather.

The upslope toward the Shack was almost a problem in navigation. The runoff was three or four inches deep, and once Wendy had to edge around the top of a pine that had fallen, mostly in the woods but partly across the right lane of the highway. However, she got them to the Shack, parked as close as she could to the gift-shop entrance, and the three young people and the dog made a dash for the dry porch.

Dipper got his feet wet, along with his head and shoulders, and so did the girls. Tripper went as far away from them as he could on the narrow porch and gave Mabel an apologetic glance.

"Just wait a minute," she said, unlocking the door. "Everybody in. OK, Tripper, shake it off!"

Tripper shook his whole body, sending a spray of water flying. He was a short-haired dog, very little undercoat or shedding, and he wouldn't stay wet for long. He carefully wiped all four feet on the mat, came inside, settled over beside the check-out counter, and began to lick himself.

"I need a towel," Wendy said.

"I'll go with you," Mabel told her. Dipper went upstairs, dried his hair as best he could with a face towel, and donned a dry tee shirt. He started down again, but Mabel stood on the landing. "Um, Brobro? Little favor?"

"What?" he asked suspiciously. "I already bought gas for you today."

"Yeah, thanks for that," she said. "Only—well, I want to have some girl talk with Wendy. Is it OK if we sit in her room for a little while? Hour or so?"

"Sure," Dipper said. "You don't have to ask my permission."

"I know, but you'd start wondering where Wendy was, and then you'd start looking, and then you'd find us talking, and you'd be all 'Are you guys talking about me?' and it would be embarrassing, so this is a pre-emptive request. It's just—well, she's a little bit older, and I have some things to talk to her about, the kind I can't really talk about with Teek or even you, but—I'm messing up, aren't I?"

"No, it's fine," Dipper said, smiling. "I'm reading a good book, so—I'll just lay down on my bed and read for an hour. Go have your talk."

To his surprise, she hugged him—a sibling hug, but not very awkward—and said, "Thanks, I owe you one!"

When she had gone, Dipper spent about two minutes wondering what she had to talk about that seemed so important to her, but, heck, he'd probably learn everything the next time he and Wendy held hands. And the book was a pretty interesting one, _The Many-Worlds Theory and Psychic Phenomena, _by Dr. Dixon Ticonderoga—Dipper's Great-Uncle Stanford had mentioned him as a brilliant theorist and a gifted writer.

Though the book admittedly consisted of much speculation, the material seemed so well-reasoned and informed that Dipper thought most of the points were pretty accurate. Besides, he knew some of the bits had to be true because of his own experiences.

Right at the moment, he was deep in a chapter about the "thinness of boundaries," in which Ticonderoga hypothesized that no two neighboring dimensions were exactly alike, though they overlapped in a vast majority of ways.

"If a visitor could move over one dimension, metaphorically speaking," the book suggested, "he or she might have difficulty realizing that the transfer had even occurred. Sooner or later, however, the dimension shifter would run up against some element that would strike him or her as bizarre beyond comprehension—something the natives would take for granted, but which the visitor would find startling and strange."

"Like pinky fingers," Dipper murmured. He recalled the time he, Mabel, and Wendy had visited a bizarre world much like their own—but the inhabitants seemed strange. Indeed, because their bodies had adapted to the new dimension, the three visitors from Gravity Falls looked strange to themselves—smaller heads, oddly heavier bodies, and, most bizarre of all, the people in the other dimension were practically all born with five fingers.

By contrast, in Dipper's world most normal people were born with four and the fifth grew in sometime between the ages of twelve and twenty, though a few people, like Stanford and Gideon, got a really early start. Heck, Stanford said he had been born with six fingers on each hand, so he got a head start!

With the rain rattling on the roof, but dry and warm himself, Dipper leaned back against the wall, a pillow behind him, as he delved into this very interesting—to him, anyway—chapter.

* * *

Wendy had decorated her bedroom in the Shack much like her old room in the Corduroy house—same bed, some of the same posters, even the FALLOUT SHELTER sign that she had liberated from Ford's bunker. She had two chairs, one for her makeup table, one for reading, and she gave the latter, which was upholstered and more comfortable, to Mabel. She took the other one. For a few moments they sat in silence, the rain tapping on the window and running down in wriggly trails. Then Wendy asked, "What's up, Mabes?"

Mabel had changed into one of her trademark sweaters. The Shack's AC wasn't cranked high, but it was cool enough inside for her not to sweat from the wool. "It's kind of awkward," she admitted. "But nearly getting hit by that truck on the highway—well, I've been wanting to talk to you, but that kinda made me think it's urgent."

"You can tell me anything you want," Wendy said. "If it's trouble, I'll help if I can."

"Look, don't tell Dipper, OK? Because it concerns him. Uh, can you keep a secret? I mean, you guys can read each other's minds—"

"We worked it out so we can keep some things private," Wendy said. She smiled. "You know, if I want to give Dip a surprise birthday or Christmas present, we had to have some way of hiding the thought. So, yeah, if I kinda set my mental switch to 'private,' I can keep your secret."

"OK," Mabel said. "I've been thinking about this since you two got, you know, very serious and all. It's just—I don't know. I don't always deal with change so good. And I'm real excited for you, and I want your wedding to be the best ever and all, but—it's hard to believe it's coming on so fast. So I kind of put off bringing up the subject, but now, you know."

"No, and I won't unless you tell me," Wendy said with a kind, lopsided grin. "Come on, girl. This isn't like you."

"Yeah, yeah, old goofy Mabel, I know. But—well, if that truck had hit us right, I could have been killed, you know? And if that happened—look, Dipper and I have always been close. Well, twins."

"Sure," Wendy said. "He loves you a lot, Mabel. He's closer to you than to anybody else in the family, even Ford. Even me, I think."

"That's what bugs me," Mabel said. "I—if something happened to me, or if I, you know, moved far away and got married or some deal—I'm not sure Dipper could adjust. He holds things in, Wendy. He's afraid to let his feelings show."

"He's learning," Wendy said. "I think high school helped him. That's kinda refreshing. It messes up a lot of people. But, you know, he learned the guitar, he even writes songs, he writes his books—that's helping him open up."

"Yeah, and that's good, but—well, if he didn't worry all the time, he wouldn't be Dipper, right?"

"He does worry."

"Yeah. So, here's the deal—get him to express himself more. I mean more than in the songs and the writing and all. Get him to open up. You know I'm Grunkle Stan's favorite? I think that hurts Dipper." Mabel hugged herself. "That time when Grunkle Stan had opened the Portal, and I could have shut it down, but I trusted my Grunkle—it took a long time for Dipper to forgive me."

"Come on," Wendy said. "That was how you two got your Grunkle Stanford back! It was a good thing, not a bad one."

"That's not the point, though," Mabel said. "See, Dipper was yelling to me: 'Shut it down, shut it down!' And Grunkle Stan was all like, 'Look into my eyes, Mabel. Do you really think I'm a bad guy?' And—I turned loose and said, 'Grunkle Stan, I trust you.' And Dipper screamed at me—and the whole world just went a way for a little bit. After that, Dipper was still upset with me, not so much 'cause I didn't shut the thing down, but because I trusted Stan and not him."

"I think I get it," Wendy said. "You're worrying that when Dip and I get married, he'll resent me, or resent you, because I'll be taking your place? Is that it?"

"I don't know," Mabel admitted. "I guess so. I just don't want to see Dipper get all crazy messed-up. Don't let him hide his feelings. Even if they sometimes hurt you."

"That's very insightful of you, Mabel," Wendy said. "OK. I promise. But a sister is one thing, a wife is another. I'll never take your place, or vice-versa. I think you got a touch of the Pines worrywart gene in you too."

"I suppose I have," Mabel said. "Yeah, I do. I'm so looking forward to the wedding. You and me will be sisters! And that's exciting, but then, you know—college. And that crummy dorm room, and Tripper will have to stay up here, and he won't understand why I went off and deserted him, and I don't think I'll be as good as the other art students—and Teek off in Georgia at that dumb movie school. It's all coming at me like a freight train."

"We won't be far away," Wendy reminded her. "You can go see Tripper pretty often. And Dipper's already thinking we could get together every day for breakfast or dinner or something. It won't be so bad for you. And don't talk crazy about not being as good as the other students. You're gifted!"

"I don't feel like I am," she said.

Wendy nodded. "Uh-huh. Pines genes. Dip still frets about not measuring up. When he's chasing some ghost or something and he makes one little wrong guess, he beats himself up over it so bad. Listen, Mabel, I swear I'll get Dipper to open up about how he feels and about stuff that bothers him. One condition, though."

"What?" Mabel asked.

"You open up to me about junk that bugs you, too."

Mabel smiled but looked down. "You don't want that. I'd be calling you every day."

"Call me, then," Wendy said encouragingly. "We're besties, right? Sisters! Come on, I can take it. I'm a Corduroy!"

At last Mabel smiled and met Wendy's gaze, though her eyes were a little teary. "Thanks," she said. "Dipper's lucky you two got together. And so am I. Thanks—big sister!"

The two girls hugged, and it was almost like a sibling hug. Anyway, it made Mabel feel a lot better.

And outside, the rain began to taper off for real. It seemed that the storm had passed.


	6. Chapter 6

**6: The Mysterious Voyage of Mason Pines**

(June 25-26, 2017)

* * *

There's no telling exactly why it started. Possibly the near-collision in the rain had startled Dipper more than he realized and his subconscious had revved into overdrive because of that. Possibly a tiny bit of Smile Dip—either from the genie's prank or from Mabel's secret stash—somehow got into his food or drink at dinner Sunday evening. Or maybe Someone was trying to tell him Something.

Or it could have been just one of those things that happen.

At any rate, sometime during Sunday night Dipper felt himself rocking and opened his eyes. Heat was his first impression—a dry, baking heat. His second impression was _help, I'm on a horse._

Dipper had ridden horses a very few times in his life, and he had come to the conclusion that (A) he didn't like riding because (B) he was rotten at controlling an animal that weighed approximately the same as his house, (C) horses were scary, and (D) the position in the saddle hurt him in places he didn't like being hurt. Yet here he was, reins in hand, butt in the creaking leather saddle, riding a slow horse under a pitiless glaring white sky. "Whoa," he said.

The horse kept walking. It was a standard-issue brown horse with a tan mane. Its muscles worked beneath the hide, flexing and relaxing rhythmically. The ground had to be hard—the hooves clop-clopped along at a steady pace. "Whoa," he said again, tugging on the reins. The horse ignored him and kept walking.

_Where the heck am I?_ Dipper looked around at an arid landscape, tawny light-brown sand, orange-red rocks, gray straggling vegetation bare of leaves. And overhead the pale sky and, hung high, the sun. The heat hit him with brutal pressure.

"Come on, stop," Dipper said.

The horse kept walking.

"Come on, horse—what's your name?"

Without looking around, the horse said, "I don't have one."

_This has to be a bad dream. Wake up, me!_

But it also had to be the most boring nightmare he'd ever had—because the horse just kept pacing, never swerving, across the dry land. In the far distance ahead and to the right Dipper could see some pale purple smudges on the horizon that just might be far-away mountains, but dead ahead the horizon lay flat. The sky there did show a strange sort of glow.

"You can talk?" Dipper asked.

"So can you."

"Where are we going?" Dipper asked the horse.

"You're the one in the saddle."

The horse really was talking. It actually formed words and spoke them aloud, though the bit in its mouth slurred its speech—the last sentence had come out as "Oor ee un in ee addle." Didn't matter. Dipper understood it.

"Um—would you like me to take the bit out?" he asked after a while.

"Wait until night."

Dipper's rear end already ached. And his back was hurting. "I'm not a good rider," he said.

"That's OK. I'm an excellent horse."

After what could have been half a mile—the scenery all looked the same, it was hard to tell—Dipper said, "It's hot."

"Feels good to get out of the rain, though."

"Yeah," Dipper agreed. "It—wait, what?"

He looked around. Now for the first time he noticed that the low rocks—the reddish ones—lay not randomly, but set in circles that ranged from three or four feet to many yards across. It was not a natural landscape. It was more like an imagined desert.

Frowning, Dipper said, "I see rocks and rings and sand and stuff. And I'm riding through the desert on a horse with no name."

"Yeah," the horse said. "So?"

Dipper closed his eyes. "This is that song that Grunkle Stan plays sometimes in the car. It's like the one CD that he has, and he never takes it out of the player."

"I prefer the Eagles myself," the horse said. "Want to sing 'Hotel California' with me?"

"Before my time, I don't know the words, and I don't sing all that well," Dipper said. "OK, I'm wearing boots, which I never do, at least not cowboy boots, and these heavy jeans, and a blue long-sleeved shirt, and I got a bandana around my neck, and a Stetson hat. Am I supposed to be a cowboy?"

"Don't know. You got horns?"

Dipper actually felt his head with a palm. "No."

"Probably not, then." For a long time they didn't speak, and then the horse asked, "You got a name?"

"Dipper Pines."

"OK. I would've named you Lonestar myself, but I'm just a horse."

"Where are we going?" Dipper asked.

"To the horizon."

"OK. Am I going to wake up?"

"Probably. Most people do."

Dipper found he could drop the reins. They made no difference, anyway. He pinched his left arm. It hurt like a self-administered pinch. "I could take the reins off," he said.

"I'm used to them. Wait until night."

Somehow, and he couldn't say how, Dipper rode for three days. The first night he did remove the bit and the reins, and from then on just rode with them draped over the horse's neck ahead of the saddle. It didn't matter. He didn't think he'd fall off even if he tried.

Nights he and the nameless horse camped, the horse not even tied, and he grazed on the dry brush and the scant thistly plants that grew in the shadows of the largest rocks. The horse found water for them, too, at least once every day—a creek in a broad bed, but only a bare trickle over rocks, or a frankly muddy waterhole from which coyotes scrambled as they approached. No food that Dipper could eat, but Dipper was never hungry.

"If I just let you go—" Dipper began on the third day. His shirt was stained with his sweat, but his hands were red with sunburn, so he didn't roll up the sleeves.

"Not yet. Six more days," the horse said.

"Do you want to be free?" Dipper asked.

"Free is a state of mind."

On the fourth morning, Dipper said, "Look, this is just getting boring. Is there any point to this?"

The horse remained silent for at least five minutes, and then as music from some invisible orchestra swelled, he began to croon:

* * *

Once in every tale

Comes an episode like this,

When some poor baffled male

Wonders what's not real, what is—

This is the time you question me—

* * *

"Oh, my God, now it's a musical!" Dipper said. "You know what? Never mind. I'll just find out as we go."

The music ended, not all at once, but trailing off discordantly, as if parts of the orchestra gave up before others did. "I had four verses and a chorus," the horse mumbled reproachfully, but he stopped singing.

On the sixth day, bored out of his mind, Dipper asked, "How long has it been, really?"

"Since when?"

"Since I started this dream."

"The dream is eternal. You just drift in and out of it."

"Is that Zen?"

"Zat was Zen, zis is now."

"Please," Dipper groaned.

On the morning of the ninth day they came within sight of—

"The ocean?" Dipper asked.

"It's another desert," the horse said. "Just a wet one."

But along with the rocks and sand and rings and things, now Dipper saw green trees and the lovely, cool-looking blue sea. "I guess this is where I set you free," he told the horse.

"Thanks," the horse said with no enthusiasm.

Dipper piled the saddle and reins on the ground and said, "Well—thanks for the ride. And the company."

"You're welcome."

The horse turned and began to plod back toward the desert. Dipper limped toward the ocean.

He reached it before sunset—although the red sun was sinking down toward the waves. He heard the regular chuff of water breaking on sand, and it sounded like breathing. A thin voice said, "Hello."

Dipper looked down. A brown dog walked beside him. "Tripper?"

"No, another dog of the same breed."

"What's your name?"

"Don't have—"

"I'm Dipper. I'll call you Lonestar."

The dog wasn't looking at him, but at the beach. "That's a good name. Let's go for a swim."

Dipper stripped—the shirt was stiff from sweat—and then they waded and let the waves wash over them. Lonestar swam a little; Dipper just soaked. He realized that his saddle sores must have healed, because his aches and pains washed away in the salt water. The sun touched the rim of the horizon. Then they got out of the surf, and Dipper dressed again. "Is there some place where-?"

"Follow me."

A short way down the beach the dog led him inland. A stream fed into the sea there, but first it passed through—well, a sort of oasis: a broad freshwater pool, lined with trees. Dipper drank and then realized that for the last nine days of his dream, he had not eaten—and the trees around the pool swayed low with pears and peaches. The sight of them made him ravenous. In the twilight, he picked enough to blunt his hunger. "I don't have anything to give you," he apologized to the dog.

"That's all right. I caught a fish this morning before you arrived. I'm good."

"Where do I go now?"

"I'm glad you asked," Lonestar said. "I'm your spirit guide."

The sky overhead was darkening. Stars were coming out, in strange constellations, none of which he recognized. Dipper lay back. The dog curled near his head. "I'm asleep, aren't I?" Dipper asked.

Lonestar said, "For a certain definition of sleep, yes you are. From another point of view, you're in another dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind—"

"That sounds familiar," Dipper said.

"If you go to sleep here—"

"I'll wake up in the Mystery Shack?"

"Who knows?"

"Jheselbraum," Dipper said. "The Oracle. Am I right?"

A woman suddenly sat where Lonestar had been. "You're a good guesser."

"Hello," Dipper said to the Oracle.

"You are growing up to be very much like your great-uncle," the seven-eyed Oracle said. Dipper had sat up. Though full night had come, with no moon, somehow he could see her—a tall, feminine form wearing a sort of cowl and a long lavender dress. She smiled at him.

"Why the trip across the desert?" he asked.

"That was to prepare your mind. To clear it of everything that swarmed on the surface."

"Because you want to talk to me about Bill Cipher," Dipper said.

"Very perceptive. Are you upset?"

"No. That's odd, but I'm really not. I'm a little scared, though."

"The Axolotl assures me that you will survive the process. The bits of Bill lodged in your heart must be removed. It will be physically painless."

"That's good to know. Will I go crazy?" Dipper asked.

The Oracle hesitated just for a moment. "Your perceptions may shift, we think. Honestly, we do not know for certain."

"We? You and—"

"The Axolotl, yes." After what seemed like minutes, the Oracle added, "Before meeting Stanford, I really did not know much about humans. I learned much from him. But I sensed he was . . . incomplete."

"Well, he's half of a whole," Dipper said without thinking. Then, more slowly, he said, "Twins. Stanford Pines is . . . logical and dispassionate. His joy is knowledge. Stanley Pines is instinctive and emotional. They . . . they balance, don't they?"

"I did not at first know that Stanford had a twin," the Oracle said.

"Me and Mabel," Dipper murmured.

"You also have someone to balance you," the Oracle said softly. "Bill's leaving you will not damage you—as long as you remember that."

"And Wendy," Dipper said.

"Ah. Remember, though, you did not conquer her."

With a sudden flash of anger, Dipper said, "What? I never—"

"Love is sharing, not domination."

Defensively, Dipper almost pleaded, "I'd never—would I?"

"Dipper Pines, what is your deep fear?" the Oracle asked. "You can tell yourself."

Dipper swallowed. "That—that Wendy—that she started just by feeling sorry for me—" He gulped hard.

"At times of the greatest stress," the Oracle said kindly, "you humans have a remarkable ability to see truth. Do you remember what you told Gideon?"

"You can't force someone to love you," Dipper whispered. "The best you can do is strive—" he choked up completely.

"Wendy finds you worthy of loving," the Oracle said. "When the time comes, do not allow yourself to fall prey to doubt. Remember what you have taught yourself. Trust your sister and trust Wendy. You will need their help not to slip into despair."

"Will it be OK?" Dipper asked.

Reassuringly, she said, "You can make it that way."

More time passed as they sat silently side by side. Then Dipper asked, "Are you really talking to me? Or is this just a dream?"

"There's no practical difference," she said.

"You—you really hate Bill, don't you?"

"I hate what he has done. I fear that when he knows himself thoroughly, he will fall into his old ways. The Axolotl says he must have the chance. He has the free will to try to make amends. I do not know why. He has not earned it."

"Maybe," Dipper said, but then he stopped.

"Say it. The lesson for this day. Then you can go."

"Maybe," Dipper said slowly, "mercy is not something that has to be earned. It has to be something that is given freely. Is that it?"

"Huh?" Wendy asked. "Is what what?"

Dipper opened his eyes. Wendy was leaning over him, grinning. "Hey, dork, you gonna lay in bed all day, or are we gonna run or what? It's a little bit cooler this morning."

For a moment Dipper, his mind still in the Eden on the edge of a boundless sea, couldn't think what to say. But then his heart spoke for him.

"I love you."


	7. Chapter 7

**7: On the Track of Dreams**

(June 26, 2017)

* * *

That last week in June shaped up to be sweltering. Monday morning on the radio, Toby Determined (he had given up "Bodacious T" a few years earlier) observed, "It's official folks! This is already the hottest summer since 2012. Expect daytime temperatures to soar above 100 degrees every day for the rest of this week, touching a hundred and five on Friday and Saturday. There may be some relief after the weekend, but until at least Sunday night, think cool thoughts!"

"Blargghh!" Mabel said on Monday afternoon. She looked wilted. She, Teek, Wendy, and Dipper had first gone to the municipal pool, but it was so full of fellow heat sufferers there was no room for four more. The lake was a little less crowded, but the water was on the tepid side of cool.

"Look," Wendy said, pointing.

The largest of the Valley's many waterfalls—Gravity Falls Falls itself—had dwindled by half. "Even with the rain we had?" Dipper asked.

"Thunderstorms dump a lot at once, but it runs off all at once, too," Wendy said. "What we need is a good long soaking rain, two or three days of it. Sometimes we get 'em in the summer, but if this heat keeps up, the waterfalls may just about dry up before the normal rains start in October."

As it was, the sun overhead made them reluctant to spend much time out on the raft or on the beach. Dipper and Wendy stood in neck-deep water for most of the time. Every once in awhile one or the other would duck completely under to cool the hot spots the sun made on the tops of their heads.

"We could try some rain magic," Mabel suggested. She was dipping in and out of the lake, retreating with Teek to the shade up at the head of the beach between swims.

"Bad idea," Teek said. The two of them came to rest, toes on the bottom—they were a little farther out from the beach than Dipper and Wendy—and Mabel said, "Boo! Wet blanket. Hot wet blanket."

"I think I agree with Teek," Dipper said. "First, Grunkle Stanford says there's no such thing as magic. Second, he also says it's dangerous to fool around with it."

"Huh," Wendy said. "Seems like a weird thing for Dr. P. to say. I mean, zombies and ghosts and witches and so on? That's not magic? What are they?"

"Yeah, chopped liver?" Mabel demanded. "Guh, it's too hot for chopped liver. I'm making myself sick. To the shore!"

She and Teek swam away.

Dipper said, "I'll ask Grunkle Ford, but I think it's along the line of 'There's a scientific explanation for everything, and for things we don't understand at all, there's a scientific explanation that hasn't been discovered yet.'"

"Whatever," Wendy said. "One second." She submerged, then came back up, pushing the hair out of her eyes. "Whoof! Wanna get out and go find someplace cooler?"

"This isn't so bad," Dipper said. "It's only 101 today. By Friday—"

"Don't say it, dude. Hundred and five, I heard the weatherman. Hey, for the next few days, you better move your car under shelter. I got a place for the Green Machine—"

"Shelter from heat? For a car? Never heard of that. Just a sec." Dipper bent his knees and ducked under the surface. Water gurgled in his ears and he heard the strangely magnified sounds of the lake. He kept his eyes open, too, the better to admire Wendy's cherry-red bikini, though admittedly the water of Lake Gravity Falls wasn't crystal-clear.

He came back up. "OK, why shelter a car?"

"Cars are greenhouses," Wendy said. "They get hotter than hell in full sun, 'specially on days like these. One summer my dad cooked eggs and biscuits on the dash of his pickup! Soos says it's OK for employees to pull off the parking lot and under the trees. Shade stays there all day, and it keeps stuff like vinyl from melting—no, really, it's happened before! Knew a guy in high school who'd put clear vinyl on his car seats to protect the leather, and one hot day he jumped in the car, and the vinyl split under and behind him, even stuck to his clothes like it had been glued. Anyhow, the extreme heat's bad for the wiring and so on. There's room under the trees—you and Mabes should park your cars there, too, until this heat wave breaks."

"That's why you parked so far away from the beach," Dipper said, glancing toward the shore. Most of the cars stood right out in the open, but Wendy had gone to a far corner, pulling her Dodge Dart into a pool of shade. Which, he noticed, was shrinking as the afternoon went on. "I think you're right, though. I'm getting pruny. Time to get out. Want to go to a movie?"

"Nah, nothing I really want to see," Wendy said. "Bowling?"

"I thought you hated bowling."

"Meh, it's OK, little boring for me. I think it's 'cause my dad and brothers are so nuts about it. And maybe I kinda resent it that they never wanted me to go with them, 'cause first, I'm a girl, and second, I could beat everybody 'cept Dad. But bowling's OK every once in a while."

When they got out of the lake, they checked out the local bowling lanes—but everybody else had the same idea. Nothing available, and they didn't want to wait. "Let's just go to the Shack, sit in the parlor, and crank the air-conditioning way up," Wendy said.

"Abuelita gets cold," Dipper pointed out. She was sensitive to cold and weathered the heat better than anyone else in the family.

"The bunker was cool even in the middle of summer," Wendy said.

"Yeah . . . but I don't think Great-Uncle Ford likes us going down there," Dipper told her. "He keeps saying he's got to clean out some of the real dangerous stuff, but he never gets around to it."

In the end, they went back to the Shack, set up a floor fan in the parlor, and made do with the current thermostat setting. Soos, surprisingly, was out in the heat mowing the Mystery Trail—on his riding mower, and he wore a big sombrero, but still, it wasn't a job that Dipper envied. Melody was working in the gift shop, restocking the shelves, and she turned down their offer of help—"I'm glad to get some alone time," she said. Abuelita and the kids were in the nursery, probably all three taking a siesta.

So Wendy and Dipper sprawled on the sofa, the fan stirring the air, their hands clasping. And they chatted, mentally.

_So do you think it was just a dream, or was the Oracle really warning you?_

—_I don't know. Seemed really real for a dream, somehow. For one thing, I don't often dream in color. I can remember colors from the—vision, whatever. Yellowish sand, red rocks, eventually a real deep blue ocean. Never seen anything like it._

_You're worried about what's gonna happen at the end of the summer, aren't you?_

—_Well, yeah. I mean, Bill saved my life that time. And now for years a few of his molecules have been riding around inside me. And sometimes I think that getting the—Stan would call it gumption—to go out for track and even ask you to dance and date you and all—I'm afraid that might be Bill goading me on, not me at all._

She nuzzled his neck_. Told you before, man. Like the Oracle said, you are worthy of loving. All on your own, without anybody's help. And I love you._

—_I love you too, Magic Girl. But—when I'm just me again—maybe I won't measure up. I don't know. Just another thing for me to fret about._

_Don't worry, dude. I'll be there. And that same day—we're getting married. That scares me just a little bit. I know it does you._

—_Mom keeps muttering, "You two are so young." And she's right, but—nobody's had what we have, so I know it'll work—wait a minute._

_I'm ahead of you, man. What if our telepathy goes away with Bill._

—_That would be horrible!_

_Not gonna happen. Bill didn't give it to us. He can't take it away._

—_I hope not. I'm so used to this now. It makes the whole world a lot less lonely._

They hugged a little and kissed a little, but man—it was hot, even with the AC and the fan going.

* * *

That evening after dinner, Dipper walked down the hill to Grunkle Ford's house, where Ford and Lorena were clearing the dinner dishes. "You just missed having dinner with us!" she said. "There's home-made pie, if you'd like some—coconut cream."

"I've eaten, thanks," Dipper said. "Are you busy tonight?"

"I am," Lorena said, drying her hands on a towel. She glanced at the clock. "In fact, I'd better be on my way. There's a meeting of the History Museum board. We've got to make sure all our preparations for the Fourth and for Pioneer Day are complete."

"I'm at loose ends," Ford said with a smile. "The Institute barely needs me until school starts again in September, the Agency is unusually quiet—I suppose the supernatural elements don't like the heat—and I've just been slowly writing up a few Journal accounts."

Lorena kissed his cheek. "You boys have a good time," she said. "I should be back by ten, darling."

"Drive safely," Ford said.

When they were alone, Dipper didn't quite know how to begin. Ford took him to his home office—"The coolest place in the house these days," he said—and parked him on the loveseat. Ford didn't sit at his desk, but took the armchair instead. "I sense you have something on your mind," he said. "Some supernatural threat?"

"I don't think so," Dipper said. "Not a threat. Um. OK, Great-Uncle Ford, tell me—does the Oracle ever communicate with you?"

Ford's eyebrows rose. "How do you mean?"

"Well, like in dreams?"

"Ah. You've dreamed of Jheselbraum the Unswerving," Ford said with a smile. "So have I, a good many times over the past years. And to answer your question—I'm not sure. She was extremely kind to me when I was traveling through the dimensions and was hurt and sick. She even installed this." He tapped his head, producing a metallic sound from the plate imbedded beneath the skin. "However, I suspect there's some rule—maybe more of a guideline—that discourages direct communication with this dimension from her own."

"So they're just dreams," Dipper said, not knowing whether to feel relieved or alarmed.

"Possibly," Ford said. "Oh, I know you want a definite answer, Mason, but truthfully I cannot supply one. There have been times when I've felt that yes, she has somehow come through the Mindscape and into my dreaming mind—moments when she gave me advice or warnings that later proved to be what I needed. Other times, well, I suppose my mind just conjures up images of her from memory. She's a most imposing figure. Not . . ." he paused, tilting his head back. "Not frightening. Even with seven eyes. In her presence I felt a kind of, well, there's no word for it but love. Not attraction, mind—a sharing, a caring for others."

"Well, I did dream about her," Dipper said when it didn't seem that Ford had anything more to say. "It was odd. It started out with a trip across a desert."

Ford leaned back and tented all twelve of his fingers. "Interesting."

"Why?" Dipper asked.

"Well, dream imagery is a difficult pattern to unravel—"

"But not magic?"

Ford smiled sympathetically. "I hate to be paradoxical, but yes and no. Things that we perceive as magical happen—quite often, here in Gravity Falls—but if we could fully understand them, nine times out of ten the occurrences would follow clear scientific laws. The catch is that the scientific laws might be borrowed from a dimension very different from ours, where the physics and chemistry are completely different."

"So it seems magical to us—"

"But really is a simple entanglement of dimensions." Ford shrugged. "Of course, that's assuming a unique definition of 'simple.' Where was I?"

"Dream imagery," Dipper said. "The desert."

"Yes. Some interpreters say that dreaming of a desert symbolizes a condition of confusion, a sense of impending loss. Others say that it represents a clearing of the mind, a preparation to comprehend things formerly not understood."

"There was a talking horse," Dipper said.

"Ed?" asked Ford with a broad smile.

"Huh?" asked Dipper. "Uh, no. It didn't have a name, actually."

Ford pursed his lips. "By any chance, have you been riding with Stanley in his automobile this summer?"

"Um, no, maybe once—"

"Did he play that song I can never get out of my head? Sometimes I wish Wendy hadn't installed a CD player in the automobile. That's probably—"

"You know," Dipper said, "I remember thinking that—the song about riding through the desert on a horse with no name, and even hearing it over and over in the car. Only, no, I don't think I really knew about the CD player and the record. When did Wendy install it?"

"Oh, weeks before you and Mabel came up. It was back in February or March, I think. Sheila found it on sale, and Wendy installed it. But the only CD he has in it is—"

"The one with the song about the horse," Dipper said.

"Yes, that's one of the tracks. The album is by the musical group America, which, I believe, was formed, paradoxically enough, in England," Ford said. "Stanley had mentioned to me that he listened to their music a lot back in the seventies. I learned a compact disc version of their most successful compositions was now available, and I gave it to him as a present. Mea culpa!"

"But I didn't know all that," Dipper said, frowning. "I mean, I've heard the song, but I don't remember Grunkle Stan playing it, ever. So—"

"You were privy to information you had no easily explained way of knowing," Ford said. "That is a kind of magic, by most definitions. What else?"

"A talking dog," Dipper said. "He looked like Tripper—or she, I'm not sure. Anyway, when I got through the desert, the horse went away and the dog was there, and the dog and I walked to the beach. It was a beautiful ocean, very deep blue, sort of sapphire. I've never seen anything like it in real life."

Ford nodded. "That's actually a hopeful sign. Dream interpreters say that a dog is a symbol for a protective influence in your life, and that to dream of the ocean signifies that you are approaching a period of clear understanding, tranquility, and happiness. A time of renewal and increased appreciation of life. So once you clarify your mind—the desert part—you arrive at a new awakening."

"Well, it was close to night, so the dog led me to this—I saw it as an oasis, I guess. A big wild garden with fruit trees and a pond of clear, cold, refreshing water. And the dog went away, or else it transformed, and the Oracle was there."

"The garden," said Ford, "could represent the fulfillment of your work and your struggles. It implies success, accomplishment. However, I must add that I don't fully accept dream interpretation, but for what it's worth, these dream images are positive."

"I actually feel better now," Dipper admitted. "The Oracle said I had to prepare for when Bill Cipher fully leaves me. It won't hurt physically—but what if Cipher gave me the determination to do the stuff I've done? The track team, playing the guitar, the writing." He bit his lip. "Wendy and me."

"Why do you think he may have helped?" Ford asked.

Dipper took a deep breath. "Because I'm not sure I'm really good enough for any of that on my own. Especially Wendy. I keep wondering, what if she just loves the Bill side of me?"

"Honestly, Mason," Stanford said, "I think I know Bill better than anyone in the world, perhaps with two exceptions—Stanley and you. That said, I don't recognize even a trace of Bill in you. Do you think he's corrupted you?"

"I don't know," confessed Dipper. I—I hope not."

"Well, he corrupted me once. Take it from me, you'd know for sure if he had." Ford squinted. "You seem to think he was like a vampire—that he turned you into a version of himself. That he vampirized you in some fashion."

"I don't know."

"Well, he didn't. You have none of his dark side—the love of chaos for the sake of chaos, the urge to dominate everyone, the desire to tear down, not build. That's everything you are not. Judging by what I know of young Billy Sheaffer, and what you've told me about him, I think—just my opinion, mind—I think that Cipher's merging his molecules with you didn't, um, cipherize you—it Dippered him!"

Dipper gazed at him blankly.

Ford shrugged, holding his hands palms-up. "We're in unknown territory here, but I mean I think his being able to share your fears and your hopes, your sorrows and your joys, over the years has . . . well, maybe not 'humanized' him, but has led him to appreciate the tough challenge he'll face in trying to redeem himself. Or, from what I understand, to earn the chance of redemption—because, you know, the Axolotl is testing him with his life as Billy Sheaffer. Only if he comes through it with his worse qualities mastered does he go on to get a chance at becoming his old self again, to go back in time to before his destructive course was chosen, and this time be a positive force, not a negative one."

"You still don't trust him," Dipper said.

"No, in fact I do not," Ford said. "And that, perhaps, is my failing. However—" he leaned forward and put his hand on Dipper's shoulder—"I will always trust _you_, Mason. Always."

Dipper nodded, his heart too full at the moment to allow him to speak.


	8. Chapter 8

**8: Magic, Schmagic**

(June 27-29)

* * *

From Tuesday to Thursday that week, the heat grew steadily more intense. The highs not only hit one hundred degrees but left it behind, hovering around 102 on both Tuesday and Wednesday and then 104 by Friday—and the peak heat lasted not just an hour, but three or four.

Dipper thought, almost hoped, that the blistering heat wave would thin the tide of tourists but it did not appear to daunt anyone. As usual, the gift shop bore the brunt—first, it was on the sunnier side of the Shack to begin with, and second, Soos had underestimated the amount of cooling it would get from the central air conditioning unit.

"I Soosed up my numbers," he said on Tuesday evening at dinner. "I'm saving up enough money so next spring I can add a couple of ducts and also replace the unit with a bigger capacity or some junk. Coming out of the Museum and into the shop was like walking into a sauna!"

"But you're losing weight," Mabel, who always looked on the bright side, chirped. That was true—at the end of a hot day, Soos weighed about five pounds less than he had at the beginning.

"It's water weight, though," Wendy pointed out. "All that sweating."

"I'll, like, try to keep it off, though," Soos said, reaching for the mashed potatoes.

Sheila had dropped in for dinner—with Stan out of town, she was on her own, and Melody had thoughtfully called and invited her. "Where's Grunkle Stan off to?" Dipper asked her.

"Oh, he's up in Canada," Sheila said. "There's a casino up in British Columbia somewhere that doesn't have his picture taped to the security-room monitors."

"Do they really do that?" Mabel asked.

"I'm not sure," Sheila admitted. "He claims he's banned from three or four casinos, but he goes to Vegas at least once every three months, and when he can, we go to Atlantic City and even to some in Europe. I don't think he's actually ever been to a Canadian one, but before he left, he told me his photo wouldn't be up in this one."

"Sounds like a Stan joke," Wendy said.

"I don't get it," Mabel said, frowning. "Why would a casino turn away a perfectly good customer just 'cause he wins?"

"Casinos aren't in business to lose money," Dipper told her. "And Grunkle Stan's freakishly lucky."

"Well, he doesn't _always _win," Sheila said, smiling.

Wendy grinned. "No, but he knows how to walk the line—he loses enough so his wins seem random, but he somehow always comes out ahead."

"That's true," Sheila agreed. "Usually I like to go with him just to watch. He says I'm a good-luck charm. I don't gamble myself—well, the slots, but I take about fifty dollars in quarters and that's my limit. Stan's fun to be around when he plays cards, though, but this time he said it was a special trip, more business than pleasure, and so I stayed behind."

"Where's he gone?" Mabel asked. "I know you said British Columbia, but—"

"It's not far north of Vancouver," Sheila said. "It's a hotel and casino on—" she frowned. "Some river. Wait a minute, I'll remember it. Anyway, he called this afternoon and said the trip was smooth, he had a good hotel room, and that the temperature out on his balcony was about seventy."

"Seventy! He really is lucky," Dipper said. In the gift shop, it had been over eighty-five, and that was indoors, with the AC running.

"I wish he could send some cool air our way," Mabel said, and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oops—are we sure the genie's gone?"

"Stawamus!" Sheila said. "That's the river. The casino's mostly owned by the—how do the Canadians put it? The First Nations?"

"Oh, dawg!" Soos said. "It's an Indian casino!"

"In Canada, they're not Indians. They're First Nations," Dipper said.

"Got it," Soos said. "I'll make, like, a mental note."

That whole day and well into the evening, the heat—muggy since the thunderstorm—lay heavy on the Valley, and that night even Mabel didn't want to go out and do anything. "I'm gonna lie on my bed with a fan on me," she said. "And Tripper will have to stay down at the foot and not touch me. He's a hot dog!"

Tripper sniffed but didn't reply, as always.

"If a low pressure system moved through, slowly," said Wendy, "that would cool things off. Bring some rain, too—we're under the average for the year, pretty dry winter and spring, and the farmers could use it."

"If the genie is listening," said Mabel, "I change my wish to a low pressure system and three or four days of rain. Mabel, over and out!"

Up in his room, Dipper considered going down to the lab to sleep. The attic was a space he loved, but—it_ was_ at the top of the stairs, and warm air rose. If the downstairs was a comfortable 75 degrees, the attic bedroom would be about 82 to 83, bearable but decidedly warm.

Of course it had been worse back in 2012, when he and Mabel had shared the room and there was no AC at all, but somehow by opening the window they had toughed it out. Though he did remember one sweltering evening when he had left his bed to sleep in the bathtub, and Mabel spent the night on the sofa on the back porch.

And it was true that the lab, especially the third level, was always cool because it was underground and insulated. However, that really was Ford's territory, and Ford tended to worry about their fooling with his equipment, so . . . with a small table fan whirring and oscillating on the table he used as a desk, Dipper read another few chapters in the Ticonderoga book, pondered his great-uncle's theory that magic was really just a tangling up of one reality with another, and wondered if a quantum entanglement of Gravity Falls with, say, an ice world would possibly cool things off.

Nah, with typical Pines luck, it probably would only pull through a pissed-off Wampa. Better not try, he decided.

Magic, or dimension-weaving, or whatever, well, if it worked at all, was a rich source of unintended consequences. Even Grunkle Stan's temporary possession of a pair of magic money pants would probably backfire in some spectacular way. It just might sour his run of good luck. Or Genie money might turn out to be like the fairy gold from the legends—real enough by moonlight, but it turned to yellow leaves at dawn.

He tried to force himself to concentrate on the complex mathematics in the book that showed the theoretical possibility of one dimension's influencing another. He could only follow the math to a point, and then it became indecipherable symbols.

As he struggled to understand just how things worked—no small feat in Gravity Falls, where nothing worked the way he expected, anyhow—Dipper started making a mental list of questions for Ford. He closed his eyes to rest them and fell asleep that way, the book open on his chest.

* * *

At the same time, down in her bedroom, Mabel sat propped up in bed, two pillows behind her, a floor fan sending a breeze over her, and surfed the Internet on her tablet. Coincidentally, or it just might be that twin brains tended to think alike, she was hitting web sites that discussed magic. Weather magic, to be precise.

"If there's just a safe way of doing it," she told Tripper, who'd curled up into a bagel shape—the fan blew right across him, and since he apparently didn't mind hot weather nearly as much as his humans did, he turned his nose and tail away from the air flow. "What do you think? Worth a shot?"

Tripper stared at her with his big brown eyes and tilted his head to the right, then straightened it a little. He flicked his ears. Mabel could read his body language, or so she claimed, and she interpreted that as a doggy shrug: "Maybe yes, maybe no, who knows?"

"There's like a million different ways here," she said. "Take five flints and throw them over your shoulder behind you, but you got to be facing east. What's a flint, anyway? Let's see . . . huh. Chert. OK, so what's chert? Mm . . . a hard gray rock containing flint. That's a lot of help. Flint, flint . . . hard gray rock . . . produces sparks when struck against iron or steel . . . arrowheads and spear points made from this rock. So—do I throw rocks or arrowheads? Magic isn't specific enough."

"Werf?" asked Tripper.

"No, there's lots of other spells. This one, you have to have a wand. I guess I could use one of the fake ones we sell in the Shack, but then we'd get what, fake rain?"

Tripper yawned.

"This one looks easy. What's henbane? I wonder if there's any in the pantry. Hm. This one just requires a bowl of water. You could do that one."

Like Dipper, she eventually grew sleepy and dropped off, the tablet on her chest. That night she dreamed of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of the old _Fantasia_ movie, which she'd watched with Dipper when they were about six. If dreams could be warnings, that one might have been trying to tell her "Don't mess around with things you don't understand."

If so, what difference would it make? Heck, if people didn't mess around with things they don't understand, boys and girls wouldn't fall in love and get married, and then where would we be? Probably nowhere.

She woke up on Wednesday morning as Dipper came down the stairs. He wasn't stamping, but she could hear him coming down, and then she heard a murmur of voices as he and Wendy went out onto the lawn to do their stretching before their daily run.

Tripper whined.

"OK," she said, getting out of bed. She was wearing only her faded sleep shirt, short on her now, so she tugged on a pair of shorts. Tripper was doing his doggy potty-dance at the door. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she said. She padded barefoot to the side porch. "Do I need a baggie?" she asked. "Do you have to do Number One or Number Two?"

Tripper barked three times.

"Oh, Number Three. Let me grab a bag, then."

She did, he ran out and soon made himself comfortable, and she picked up after him. Dawn was coming on, with the eastern sky brightly pink, but the sun wasn't showing. Tripper heard Wendy and Dipper talking and ran around to the lawn to say good morning, and Mabel followed.

"You guys are sweating already," she said.

It was true. Both their faces glistened, and Wendy had tied her hair back into a giant ponytail—very unusual for her.

"It's hot out already," Dipper said. They were doing knee bends.

That was true. The air felt muggy, and inhaling it was like trying to breathe damp cotton. "What's the temperature?" she asked.

"'Bout seventy-five already," Wendy said. "And the sun's not all the way up yet."

"Going to hit at least 102 by two o'clock," Dipper said. "And the humidity's way up, about eighty per cent."

"Then it ought to rain."

"Doesn't work that way," Wendy said.

"Then they should change it. Hey, Dip, remember that time when Mom and Dad took us to Disney World?"

"Oh, yeah," Dipper said. They had switched to side stretches.

"This is how Orlando felt," Mabel said. "It isn't fair. We're way north of them!"

"This will break in a few days," Dipper said.

"Yeah, or I will. What does that do? Looks like you're trying to reach something on a high shelf."

"Helps loosen up our spines," Wendy said. To Dipper, she added, "You warmed up?"

"How could he not be?" Mabel asked. "I'm sweating, and all I'm doing is watching you!"

Tripper must have felt the same way. He started panting.

"Let's go in where it's cool," Mabel told him as Dipper and Wendy jogged off toward the Mystery Trail. Inside, Tripper drank water for about half a minute. Mabel knocked back some orange juice. Then she said, "Ugh, I'm sticky. I'm gonna take a shower and then I'll feed you. I don't want a hot breakfast today, either. Not even coffee. So cereal and OJ it is!"

Tripper looked meaningfully at his food bowl.

"Nuh-uh," Mabel said. "You eat when I eat, remember. That way you won't be looking at me with sad eyes wanting Oaty Ohs."

She took a tepid shower—it felt cool to her—and sighed. "I swear, if this heat doesn't ease off by the weekend—I'm going to try one of those darn weather spells!"

Being in the shower, it was a private observation. And being Mabel, and anticipating logical reasons from her brother about why that wasn't one of her better ideas, she decided to keep it private.


	9. Chapter 9

**July Heat**

**9: Crazy Days**

(June 27-29)

* * *

Dr. Stanford Pines met his brother Stanley at the Portland airport on Thursday—early Thursday. However, Stan looked bright-eyed even at a few minutes past eight A.M. They met in baggage claim, though Stan had nothing to claim. He carried his one compact suitcase and wore white jeans and a blue-and-white Hawaiian-style shirt. "Hiya, Sixer!" he said. "You musta got up extra early to make the drive. Thanks!"

"I wake up early anyway," Ford said. He was in black trousers and a light mulberry-colored turtleneck—Ford tended to wear long sleeves even in tropical weather, though he had left his long coat at home. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Stan shook his head. "Nah, but let's go somewhere besides the frickin' airport. Seriously, how early did you leave Gravity Falls?"

"About, let's see—well, around five-fifteen or so, I suppose."

"Ha! Gotcha beat. I boarded the plane in Vancouver at five on the dot! Hey, Brainiac, next time you're in your lab, invent that Star Trek transporter deal. I flat hate flyin'. To say nothin' of Customs!"

They left the airport building and headed for short-term parking. Ford said, "You make your dislike of flying abundantly clear. From your demeanor, I take it your trip was lucrative?"

"Eh, satisfactory," Stanley said with a hand-rocking gesture—but his grin broadened. "You still on board with this?"

"Of course. All things considered, this is a wise course of action for us. Let's see—I parked right over there."

They reached Ford's dark-blue Lincoln, Stan stowed his suitcase in the trunk, next to Ford's larger one, and then he asked, "Flip you for driving?"

"No need," Ford said. "You can take the first turn at the wheel."

"Keys."

Ford tossed them. "Here you are."

Stanley paid for the parking—grumbling a little—and then they drove south on I-5. He asked, "How hungry are ya?"

"Not very. I had some coffee and an orange in the airport. I can hold out. You?"

"I could eat, but let's wait. I know a good little place, down in Salem, maybe an hour from here. You good with that?"

"I'm fine," Stanford said. "So—how was the casino?"

"You mean the décor or the experience? I know what you mean. Let me just say it was everything I hoped for and a little bit more." With a chuckle, Stanley added, "It don't hurt to know one of the co-owners. Hey, you remember Pinky Pinter from when we were kids?"

Ford gave his brother a sideways glance. "I remember that Dad didn't like your hanging around his place," Stanford said. "Dad said Mr. Pinter was rumored to be involved in illegal gambling, as I recall, and then of course he was a Union organizer."

"Yeah, Dad had no use for unions 'cause he was kinda right-wing," Stanley said. "Dad didn't admit that, though, even though Joe McCarthy once called him a right-wing extremist. In Glass Shard Beach, Pinky's nickname was "Fast Eddie" back then, yeah, and he might have been a little bit shady, but ya know, for a crook, he was a pretty straight-up guy. I liked him. Anyhow, he lives in Philly now—"

"He's still alive?" Ford asked, sounding surprised.

"In his eighties, but still kickin' around. He's got a piece of the casino, and he greased the way for me. And I did OK, Sixer, did OK. No, don't give me the stink-eye, I don't have the dough on me. Took care of all the bankin' details kinda by proxy, and it's available and I can even draw on it by a wire transfer. I guess it's like a digital transfer these days, but whatever, you know what I mean. You got today and tomorrow clear?"

"Nothing is going on with the Agency, and of course the Institute is closed until September, so yes, I've got some free time. Just as you asked."

"Good. Shack busy?"

"Extremely," Stanford said. "Poor Mason and Mabel were looking frazzled when I last saw them."

"Great," Stan said. "Keep 'em out of mischief, and I know Soos will be happy. How's the weather? Last night on the phone, Sheila said it's been hot."

"That's an understatement," Ford said. "It's going to get up to a hundred and four today, probably hit a hundred and five tomorrow and Saturday."

Stan made a tutting sound. "That won't help business. Good weather for shingling roofs, though. What are you makin' those noises for?"

"Speed limit, Stanley."

Stan glanced at the speedometer. "Aw, for Pete's sake! I'm only like five miles per hour over."

"My car, my rules," Stanford said.

Stanley laughed, but slowed down. "OK, Dad. Anything you say, Dad."

They talked some more over breakfast. Stanford, who usually ate very lightly in the morning—frequently only an orange and coffee—agreed the small mom-and-pop restaurant served a very decent breakfast—and then the brothers continued their conversation on the long drive south. In the afternoon they checked into a motel, not top of the line, certainly, but a long cut above a dump, and got busy.

That involved some driving and some looking around. If Stan's project worked out, they hoped to craft a business deal that would eventually pay off and make all of their semi-clandestine effort worthwhile. At one point Stan said, "The great thing is that all this is a hundred per cent legal."

"I should hope so," Ford replied.

Their investigations of possibilities were not all that encouraging, but Stan had cannily saved the best for last. In fact, not long before five that afternoon they parked just off a country highway, stood in knee-high dry grass, and Stan asked, "What do you think?"

"This is better than the others, I'd say. Everything looks good from here," Stanford said thoughtfully. "I see some additional work will be needed, though. How much would the investment be?"

"That," Stan said, "remains to be seen. We have to negotiate, Poindexter. Tomorrow we gotta impress at least three different groups of people. You brought your good suit?"

"All my suits are good suits," Stanford said.

"Not the one you wear when you're the captain of the Guys in Black team, I hope. You look like an undertaker in it."

"The medium-gray three-piece," Ford said. "Lorena picked it out."

"Perfect, she's got taste, it's very conservative. OK, I got my dark blue one and even bought a normal tie. I think we're set. Tomorrow, except at one stop, you gotta do the talkin'. I can fake an educated accent, but you're the real deal. We'll go over our spiel tonight, but tomorrow I'm depending on you, Brother."

"I shan't betray your trust," Ford told him.

"Hah!" Stan barked. "Shan't! That's the stuff. Come on, let's go back to the motel and do some figuring."

* * *

"Whoo-wee," Gideon moaned at closing time on Thursday. "I'm just plumb melting! Ulva, honey, you OK?"

"OK!" she said with a smile as she finished re-stocking a shelf.

"She is just adorable," Gideon confided to Mabel. "And she's never uncomfortable!"

That was more than could be said for Mabel—she looked and felt sweaty, and she was gulping water from a glass. They sat at a table in the snack bar. Soos had nearly dropped from heat exhaustion at one point, but Wendy had swapped with him so he could come inside while she drove the tram on the Mystery Trail trips. Dipper had to leave the cash register and don the Mr. Mystery, Junior, outfit while Soos lay down in his cool bedroom to catch his breath.

Wendy and Dipper came and sat down with Gideon, Mabel, and Teek. "I think I got a sunburn," Wendy said. "Do I look red?"

"Your face does," Dipper told her. "Did you use sunblock?"

"Yeah, but I think I sweated most of it off in the first hour. How's Soos?"

"He's up," Mabel said. "He's gonna be fine. That black suit and fez—too much out in the hot sun."

"It's too much in here, too," Dipper told her. He hung the black coat over the back of his chair. His white shirt had visible sweat blotches on it. "How hot did it get in here today?"

"Highest I saw was eighty-eight," Gideon said. "'Course it was way over a hundred outside. That thermometer in the sun, it registered about a hundred and thirty, nearly all the way to the top, but the one on the porch was at a hundred and five."

"Too hot," Teek said. He looked pale—the snack bar was just as warm as the gift shop, even without the grill, and he worked over the grill.

"Hey, Wendy," Mabel said, "Is there anywhere in the Valley that flint rock grows?"

Wendy gave her a surprised look. "Uh—I didn't do geology yet, dude!"

"Rocks don't grow," Dipper said. "Well—sedimentary rock does, kinda, I guess. Most of the rock in the Valley is basalt, which is volcanic. I think flint is, uh—not sure, actually. Sedimentary? But harder than, like, sandstone."

Gideon startled Mabel by saying "I know where there's some flint right near here. Hey, Ulva, sweetie? You know those little old rock collections? Would you be a darling and bring one over, please?"

Ulva came over with a flat cardboard box in her hand, all smiles. "I am a darling," she told everyone, and she handed the box—about eighteen inches square—to Gideon.

"Here you are," Gideon said, sliding an inner plastic box out. It had indentations, a little like a candy box, that held little chips of minerals with labels below the specimens. "Flint, flint, flint, yeah, right here in the third row down, see?"

Mabel took the box from him. It was labeled "Minerals of the Pacific Northwest," and even contained a tiny little chip of gold ore. "This is it?" she asked. The specimen of flint was about three-quarters of an inch long and half an inch wide, not very impressive—just a fragment of smooth, fine-textured, gray stone.

"The arrowheads Soos sometimes gets in are made of flint," Teek said. "Well, most of them are. Some are obsidian, I think. They're not authentic relics, though. There's some company in Eugene that makes them."

"We got any in the store?" Mabel asked.

"The arrowheads?" Ulva said. "Like this?" She made a long, thin triangular shape with her forefingers and thumbs. "No, the last of those sold. They come in cloth bags. Ten dollars for a dozen of arrowheads."

"Hmm," Mabel purred. She knew the system—if she offered to do the ordering for Soos, she could get the requests for new stock in that afternoon, and if she asked for rush service—which of course cost extra, but Soos wouldn't mind so much, since the Shack's markup (itself a relic, this one of Stan's day as Mr. Mystery) was in the ludicrous range.

She got up. "I'm gonna check on Soos and see if I can help with anything," she said.

They watched her go. "I wonder what she's up to," Dipper said.

"She may not be up to anything," Wendy told him. "I'm gonna go put some aloe lotion on my face. It feels a little burned. Bet I get a few more freckles from this!"

"Your skin is so fair," Ulva told her. "Is because of your red hair?"

"I think it's just part of the package," Wendy said. "Back in a few."

When she had gone, Ulva asked, "How are wedding plans going?"

The question surprised Dipper. "Um—well, the real big ceremony's not going to be until December, so there's lots of time. We're going to have a civil service—you know what that is?"

Ulva had not spent her early years around civilized people, but she was not dumb. "Married by a judge, not a minister. Yes?"

Dipper nodded. "And it's just going to be a small get-together for the family. Probably in the courthouse downtown. See, our college will be starting just five days after my birthday and our wedding, so we won't have time for a proper celebration and, um, honeymoon and all. But after Christmas—well, Mabel's going to plan the big one, and everybody's invited to that!"

"I'm going to do the video," Teek said. "Mabel's already told me."

Wendy returned, her face a little shiny. "Yeah, got a little too much sun," she said. "We take turns tomorrow, I'm gonna definitely re-apply sunblock, like once every half-hour."

"Let's get Soos to take it easy," Dipper said. "Maybe let him do the tours just up until eleven in the morning. Then I can take a turn for a couple hours, and then Wendy can take over."

"I think that'd be a right good idea," Gideon said. "Soos is carryin' a mite too much weight to do well in this hot weather." He got up. "Well, I reckon Ulva and I better get on along. I'll put this mineral kit back—"

"No, I have it!" Ulva said, looking delighted. She deftly re-packaged the kit and trotted back to its proper place on the shelves.

"I just love her," Gideon confided.

Dipper didn't say anything, but silently, he wished them the best.

* * *

"Hello?" Mabel said into the office phone. Once before, when she took a three-day stint as boss of the Mystery Shack, she had made herself comfortable at Grunkle Stan's desk. Now she was on the phone to Cheap Jack's Wholesale, a vast warehouse of souvenirs and novelties down in Eugene. "This you, Marcus?"

"Yes, it is," said a voice with an Eastern accent—perhaps Bengali. "You have a phone order?"

"This is Mabel Pines, calling for Mr. Ramirez at the Mystery Shack. You got a pen and paper, Marcus?"

"Oh, hello, Mabel. No, but I am at the computer. What is it you need, please?"

"OK, first six of SKU11111-232-A55. Need me to repeat that?"

"Arrow points, got that. We have a special if you order a dozen—another dozen for half the price."

"Thanks, but we'll stick with six for right now. And can those be expressed?"

"One moment. Yes, we can have them there in the twelve to two o'clock delivery tomorrow. That will double the shipping price."

"Make it happen. Now, these next sixteen items, no rush on them. SKU44025-921-M33, make it two dozen of those; and next, a gross of these, SKU82430 . . . . "

Very agreeably, Marcus took the orders, told her one item (Mystic Prophet Balls) was on backorder but would be available after July 10, and totaled the ticket, which he charged to the Shack account. "Will that be all, Mabel?"

"Yes, thank you. Oh, how is Laxmi?"

Marcus's voice rose with pride. "The image of her beautiful mother, thank you for asking!"

"Email a photo," Mabel said. "We'd love to see her!"

"Will do, Mabel. Thank you for your order!"

Mabel hung up, resisting the impulse to rub her hands with glee. Out of six bags of imitation genuine arrowheads, she probably could find two dozen made of flint. The internet told her she could test by striking the flint against steel—if it made sparks, it was the real deal.

And she only needed five.

Of course, that was only one weather-changing spell. She had more up her sleeve.

She planned to try about a dozen. If she could locate some henbane, whatever the heck that was, maybe even thirteen.

One would be bound to work.


	10. Chapter 10

**July Heat**

**10: TGIF?**

(June 30)

* * *

Friday set a record for the number of tourists visiting the Shack.

No one had the least doubt that the next day would set another one.

"I don't think I can take much more of this," Mabel moaned. They had just ushered the last family out and Wendy had not only locked the door, but had propped a chair against it.

"Get off the floor," Dipper told Mabel.

"Too tired. Just bring me food," Mabel groaned. She lay face-down, arms spread, on the wood floor behind the first cash register. "I can see why Tripper likes this. It's nearly cool. Oh, Tripper. Brobro, go let him out, please. He's overdue. Ask him if he's got to do Number One or Number Two. He'll bark. Oh, he may bark three times."

"Uh—OK," Dipper said. "What does that mean?"

Without rolling over, Mabel held up her hand and illustrated her points by raising fingers. "Number one, pee-pee. Number two, poop-poop. Number three, pee-pee, toot-toot, poop-poop. He thought of that last one himself. The little baggies are—"

"I know where they are," Dipper said from the doorway. "I let him out sometimes too, you know."

Wendy followed him. "I need to stretch my legs. Let's walk him together."

The instant Dipper opened Mabel's bedroom door, Tripper zoomed out and to the back door. Wendy had lingered there and opened it for him, and he tore outside. "Wah," Dipper said as he and Wendy walked out. "Brutal!"

Though it was six-thirty in the afternoon, the heavy heat weighed them down. "Hundred and five," Wendy said, consulting the thermometer on the porch. "Let's go and hold hands and jump into the Bottomless Pit."

"That's twenty-two minutes of falling through nothingness," Dipper said.

"Might be cooler."

"I don't think I have the energy."

However, he did dispose of the little baggie in the Pit. Humans and living animals eventually fell out again, but physical objects like trash and dog poop just vanished forever.

Dipper and Wendy did hold hands as they and Tripper walked a little way down the Mystery Trial, keeping to the shade as much as they could. "Man," Wendy said, "Soos is gonna have to expand the Shack and the parking lot, and he is flat gonna have to start looking for good help."

"He says all four of us can come back next summer," Dipper said. "You and I will be married, so we'll just take up one bedroom—"

"Love it when you talk sexy," Wendy teased. "Attic, I guess."

"Well—that feels like home to me, but—"

"No, dude, attic it is. Only we'll see if we can find a good affordable queen-sized bed. Your bunk's a little bit small, especially on these hot days."

"Soos says he can put a room air conditioner in there. He knows it gets hot, so with some insulation and its own air conditioner, it should be more comfortable. Speaking of which, I'll probably want to sleep downstairs tonight. When I went upstairs on my bathroom break, my room was over ninety."

"Yikes."

"Your house doesn't have air conditioning, does it?" Dipper asked.

"Nope, never has. But it's down the slope and it's well shaded. Dad does have a huge attic fan that pulls air through the house, and that helps. Not that it's ever what you'd call cool on days like this one. I think after we get married I'm gonna go all city-girl soft. Promise me that in the summer when we're out of school we'll do junk like camping and fishing and all."

"As long as we do it together."

Tripper had dashed ahead—he seemed almost weatherproof—and had vanished in the undergrowth. They saw him come back out onto the trail twenty yards away, with a Gnome perched on his back. He came dashing back, and the Gnome jumped off, laughing. "Hi," he said.

Dipper had to think. "Um—Curt, right?"

"Curt, son of Wilbur, son of Khachzar!" the young Gnome said, bowing. "I'm the best dog-rider in the clan!"

"Right, right," Dipper said. Curt was one of the youngest Gnomes he knew personally, only twenty—the equivalent of about a twelve-year-old human. True, he had already grown a modest brown beard, but he was noticeably smaller and thinner than, say, Jeff or Shmebulock.

Wendy said, "So is the hot weather rough on you Gnome dudes?"

The young Gnome stood beside a happily panting Tripper—whose back was about at the level of his shoulders—and Curt patted his sides. "It's very bad in the daytime," he said. "We've gone mostly, uh, night-walking-thing? There's a human word for it, Jeff told me—"

"Nocturnal?" Dipper asked.

Curt beamed. "Yeah, that's the one. Nocturnal. They don't let me go out collecting garbage or doing pest control yet, but the crews don't even set out these days until the sun has been down for two human hours. Hey, I can count to five hundred!"

Dipper whistled. "Impressive! I've heard that a lot of Gnomes are learning human counting."

"Yeah, it's good if you want to be a businessGnome. And more of us are learning to read. Did you know my family used to be ferals? We used to be ferals. I never even came above the soil until I was fifteen. I like it outside better. Trees are fun. We had a great big flood three seasons ago. All the tunnels got flooded. My dad and mom had been feral since before I was born, because they didn't like the Queen. But when we had to come out of the tunnels, they found the Queen was gone, and the tree-dwellers were kind, and so Dad said, 'Let's be civilized!' My favorite food is chocolate cake."

"You . . . need to talk to my sister Mabel," Dipper said. "I think you two would have a lot in common."

"I slept in a squirrel nest all day," Curt said. "Mom and dad said it was OK because the nest was old and empty. It was hot and now I smell like squirrel. Want to sniff?"

"Sorry," Wendy said quickly. "We humans are allergic to squirrel smells."

"Hey, Tripper's heading back," Dipper said. "Nice meeting you, Curt!"

"Bye!" Curt yelled. "Hey, next year Dad says I can go dance at the Shack!"

"Great!"

Curt scurried back into the brush, and Wendy and Dipper went to open the door for Tripper. Abuelita had started to vacuum inside—that was her chief form of exercise, and she said it gave her time to meditate, too. With all the tourists out, taking their body heat with them, the AC was finally cooling the Shack down to tolerable levels.

Melody, looking wilted, was feeding Harmony her dinner, while Little Soos happily fed himself from a plate with baby carrots, salami, hummus, and apple slices—what he called a Some-more-gus Board, one of his favorites on very hot days.

Soos had evidently showered and changed clothes, because he came in wearing shorts and one of his big question-mark tee shirts. "Hey, dudes," he said. "Listen, it's so hot, me and Melody don't want to turn on the stove and junk, so what would you say to me going in and picking up dinner for everybody?"

Mabel, who had crawled in—literally—from the gift shop, sprang to her feet. "I say go for it! What restaurant?"

"I was thinking, like Hermanos Brothers?" Soos said. He raised his voice: "Abuelita's food is better, but she can tolerate the Hermanos Brothers!"

In the next room, over the whir of her vacuum cleaner, Abuelita called, "Sí! For me, gazpacho and two of their chicken tacos, mi hijo!"

"Got it," Soos called. "OK, let me get the grocery list pad—here it is—and everybody, like, tell me what you want. And it's on the house. Oh, we've got sodas, so I'll get food but, like, no drinks, OK?"

That was OK. Teek, who had just closed out the registers and worked up the day's accounts, came in. "I guess I'll head home—"

Mabel seized him. "Don't leave me! Stay and eat with us. Please! I beg you!"

"Uh, OK," Teek said.

"It's a good thing I love you, 'cause you're about as romantic as the Antelabbit," Mabel said.

"The what?" Teek asked.

"I keep telling her it's a jackalope," Dipper said.

Mabel said, "That just sounds stupid."

Eventually, Soos took a massive order, phoned it in, and he and Mabel set off in the pick-up to collect the food.

"That means she'll eat all the corn chips on the way back," Dipper said.

"Price you pay for food delivery," Wendy told him. "I'm gonna shower and change."

"Me, too," Dipper agreed. "Hey, Teek, if you want to freshen up, you can have the shower after me."

"Lend me a tee shirt?" Teek asked.

"Sure."

"OK, I'll take you up on that."

The food run took about half an hour, and by then everyone was starting to feel a little cooler. When they heard Soos pull into the lot, Dipper went out to help carry things in. It was still sweltering out, though the sun was so low that the lawn lay in the shade of the trees. "It's a mess out there," Mabel reported. "We saw a couple of fender-benders. I think everybody in town's all nutso because of the heat."

"Yeah, hambone," Soos agreed. "And they said in the restaurant that we may have a brownout tomorrow. All the air-conditioning's putting, like, a big load on the electric grid. Oh, by the way, we saw Dr. Pines and Mr. Pines—Stan, I mean—driving in. Guess Stan's back from his trip, so I hope he'll be able to help us out on Saturday and Tuesday."

"If I was them," Mabel said as she lugged in a cardboard box with salsa and two partially depleted bags of corn chips, "I would've stayed away until it got cooler. And I would have taken my wives! Both of them! Wait, is that legal?"

Wendy met them and held the door for them. "Oh, hey, Mabes," she said as Mabel passed, "Package came in from Cheap Jack's, addressed to your attention. We were so busy all day, I forgot to tell you."

"Oh, that's great!" Mabel said. "Teek, why are you wearing Dipper's Ghost Harassers shirt?"

"I took a shower and he let me borrow it," Teek said. "My shirt's kind of sweaty."

"Yeah, well, change back before we go out. I don't care it it's a little smelly. Smooching you would be weird if you wore Dipper's shirt!"

"Young peoples," Abuelita said with a contented smile.

* * *

A little desperate for a cool evening, over dinner Mabel and Teek planned to go see a movie they had already seen once, in the multiplex theater known for having no sense of proportion when it came to ramping up the AC. Thompson, the manager, was himself sensitive to heat, and so on blistering days he kept the theaters cool enough to preserve meat.

But before leaving the Shack, on the pretense of taking a quick shower, Mabel took a little extra time to open the package from the Shack's supplier of tourist junk, tchotchkes, souvenirs, knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, curios, and the odd legitimate and possibly lethal supernatural article. She opened three of the bags—they had little cinch-strings to close them—and spread the arrowheads on her makeup table. She had borrowed a file from Soos's workbench, and she moved the arrowheads across the finer surface.

The first three were duds, but the fourth and sixth both struck orange sparks. She put those aside and went through the next bag, finding three flints in that one. She assembled the remaining arrowheads into five full bags and one that held only seven, not a dozen.

She made a mental note to pay for one bag of arrowheads—ten dollars would be worth it if she could really break the heat wave—and then got ready for the movie date. Before leaving, she checked half a dozen arrowhead bags in on the stock ledger, noted that one was sold, and wrote herself a reminder to put ten dollars into the till tomorrow morning.

Gah, tomorrow, Saturday—another scorcher. Well that was the first of July. With any luck, she might be able to do something about calling rain tomorrow or the next day. If they got rain on Sunday and Monday, then Saturday—the Fourth of July, when Soos always threw a great big town picnic—would be cool enough for everyone to enjoy it.

"They'll thank me later," she told herself.

She left the five flints on her nightstand, and then she and Teek went out to see a so-so movie for the second time, hold hands and—this was the important thing—soak up the air-conditioned chill for two glorious hours.


	11. Chapter 11

**July Heat**

**11: TGIS!**

(June 30-July 1, 2017)

* * *

The elder Mystery Twins and their wives had dinner outside of the Valley on Friday evening. They drove a little farther than they normally would have because it was an occasion, and they patronized a fancy French restaurant overlooking the Columbia River.

Stan consulted Sheila on what to order: vichyssoise, coq au vin, a salad, and Tête De Bélier Rosé to accompany, with crepes as a dessert. She ordered the same, and Stan said, "What the heck, it's pricey, but let's get the bottle of wine."

Lorena, whose French was flawless (so was Ford's, but his was the sixteenth-century variety), ordered for the two of them—she had a lobster bisque, cognac shrimp in a beurre blanc sauce with couscous, a salad, and a Sauvignon blanc, with a strawberry-and-cream Millefeuille to follow. Ford, who was driving, stuck to mineral water for his beverage and ordered beef consommé, beef bourguignon, a salad, and instead of dessert, coffee.

"This is really fancy!" Sheila said. "I don't think we've eaten like this since we went to Monte Carlo."

"Are you two going to open up about this great big secret?" Lorena asked Ford.

"Let's get through the soup course before speaking of it," Ford said. The waiter had just brought it to the table.

Once they had tasted the soups—all were good—the waiter went away and Ford said, "All right, this is something Stanley brought up—well, almost exactly a year ago. It's an investment—I'm going in with him, but Stanley is providing about seventy-five per cent of the funds."

"'Cause for a change I got more dough to invest than my brainy brother," Stan said. "Tell ya what, Poindexter, let's show the gals the photos."

And so they did, and Lorena and Sheila looked at them and approved and Stanley and Stanford explained what they were up to.

"That's a relief!" Lorena said. "I was afraid it was something shady!"

"My Stan wouldn't do that," Sheila told her with a laugh. "Well—not very shady!"

"It's all legal and it's all above-board, and we're gonna keep it quiet until the right time comes along. So you ladies have to keep a secret," Stan said.

"Well, I think it's terrific, you two going in together on something like this!" Sheila said. She raised her glass. "Cheers!"

However, secret or not, the two wives and their husbands felt perfectly free to talk among themselves. As the wine flowed and the good food went down, they made plans for the future—plans that didn't involve just the four of them, but would bring in other Gravity Falls folks as well. After they paid the check—Stan grabbed it, but Ford insisted on leaving the tip—they went out into the fresh air.

"I'm a little bit tipsy!" Sheila said.

"I'm driving," Ford reassured her. "And I've had only water and the minuscule amount of wine in my meal."

"If he can say 'minis—minuscule," Lorena said, "He's good to drive."

"You gals have no head for alcohol," Stan told them. "Me, I could drive just as well now as I could sober." Which very likely was true.

However, on the way back, he and Sheila went to sleep in the back seat, leaning on each other. When, past one in the morning, Ford stopped in front of their house and woke them, they smiled in a kind of unfocused way, said their good-nights, and went in.

"Look at the time," Sheila said as they undressed for bed. "We're lucky tomorrow's Saturday."

"It's a lot hotter here than it was up at the river," Stan said. "Ya notice? It's like seventy-eight here, and it was just seventy up there."

"Maybe it'll be cooler next week. What are you doing?"

"Setting the alarm for seven-thirty. I gotta go help in the Shack."

"Oh, Stanley!" Sheila said. "After this late night?"

"I can take it, doll," Stan said in a mock-Bogart voice. Then, more seriously, he added, "Soos is really gonna need all the help he can get. The Shack is bustin' out at the seams. Him and me have to have a conference about maybe expanding somehow." He sighed as he slipped into bed beside Sheila and clicked off the bedside lamp. "Man, if I coulda done the business that Soos does these days, I might've brought Ford back ten years earlier."

"And then the two of us might never have met," Sheila said. She tugged the sheet up. "Will this be too warm over us?"

"Mm—might be. Unless we shed some excess clothes."

Which was easily said and easily done, and they ended the night very pleasantly.

* * *

The early morning heat, coupled with Toby Determined's six o'clock weather forecast for Saturday—"Whoo, Gravity Falls, it's shaping up to be another scorcher! Expect plenty of sunshine, a high of a hundred and five, and random spontaneous wildfires!"—persuaded Dipper and Wendy to skip their run. "I can't believe it's eighty already," Dipper said at a few minutes past six that morning.

"Yeah, I think Soos should crank the air way, way down and get a head start. Not that it'll really help very much," Wendy said.

Mabel had taken Tripper out. She dragged back in. "This whole town's gonna die of heat stroke!" she said with a groan. "Is this a record heat wave or what?"

"I think it might be," Wendy told her. "We've been lucky these past three or four summers—pretty mild, all told, just a few really hot days, usually at the end of July or early August. This weather pattern's really kicking our butts."

"I say we kick back," Mabel muttered. "I've found magic spells—"

"Those never work out!" Dipper said.

"Well, no, not anywhere else, but this is Gravity Falls, Brobro!"

"Mabes," Wendy said, "I know you mean well, but seriously, don't fool with junk like that. Remember all the times when your plans didn't work out the way you wanted?"

"But they worked out!" Mabel said. "The love potion thing set up Tambry and Robbie, didn't it?"

"Yeah, and nearly broke up my posse, and then later Tambry and Robbie kinda had to get married 'cause her folks caught them. Not that it didn't work out eventually, but man, it caused all kinds of headaches."

Dipper added, "And then you kidnapped Sev'ral Timez—"

"Liberated," Mabel said. "The term is liberated. And they're doing a lot better now with Tad Strange managing their career than they did with that awful Bratzman guy."

"The time you lost Little Soos in that crazy storybook dimension you and Teek talked about," Wendy said.

"Yeah, but that was really kind of fun, and the king knew from the start that he'd lose and send us back. It was more like a game!"

"Not to hear Teek tell it," Dipper said.

"Anyway," Mabel said, still grumpy, "you can't talk. You went to chase a dumb ghost and wound up getting us stuck in that alternate universe where Gravity Falls was just a cartoon show on TV!"

"I've learned better," Dipper said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Wendy said, becoming the referee. "Hold on, you guys. Mabel—you're gonna do this anyhow, aren't you?"

"I'm sick of this heat!" she said. "Anyway, Dipper says he doesn't even believe in magic, so there shouldn't be any risk involved."

"I didn't exactly say that," Dipper muttered. "It's only that magic means the violation of natural laws, which shouldn't happen. What I'm saying—and I think Great-Uncle Ford agrees—is that what we call magic is just some other reality's messing with our universe's natural laws."

"So it might work?" Mabel asked.

"Nobody knows, Sis! Look, let's say it worked but it started to rain and just never stopped. Gravity Falls Valley might become a lake! Everything would be drowned!"

"Yeah, but I'd specify I only want a few days of rain," Mabel argued.

"It's too risky. You just don't know what might happen."

Wendy made a time-out gesture, palm flat against upraised fingers. "Tell you guys what. Mabel, let Dip confer with Dr. Pines on this one. You get some expert help, too. Don't start it without taking some advice."

"Aw," Mabel said, "Grunkle Ford will just agree with Dipdop. They're nerds of a feather. Wait, I know—I can go ask a real witch for advice!"

"A real witch?" Dipper said. "You know any—oh, wait, you don't mean the Hand Witch?"

Mabel had an excited grin plastered on her face. "Sure! She's a professional witch! And she has a booth in the Crawl Space—I can drop in and talk it over with her tomorrow. If I do, will you listen to what she has to say?"

"I don't know if she can help," Dipper said. "I mean, one of her spells gave her all those extra hands—" to Wendy he added, "her body's mostly made up of hands. Anyway, she never could get herself completely back to normal, so what if she gives you bad advice?"

"Any advice is good advice!" Mabel said. "You go see your science guy and I'll go see my magic gal. I promise I won't do anything until we know what they both have to say."

"Fair enough," Wendy said.

Dipper shook his head. "I don't think so." He sighed. "But I guess that's the best we'll do."

* * *

Just before opening time, Grunkle Stan walked in, already in full Mr. Mystery attire. "Ta-da! I'm back, knuckleheads. Glad you didn't burn the place down while I was out of town."

"Mr. Pines! I mean Stan!" Soos yelled, "It's good to have you back! Uh, are you planning to help out today?"

Stan struck a pose, legs spread, shoulders back, eight-ball cane tilted. "What do I look like I'm gonna do, play pinochle?"

"Don't do it!" Mabel said to Soos behind her hand. "He's a card shark!"

Melody, who looked worried, said, "I was hoping you could be here. Do you think we should stop the Mystery Trail runs until the weather gets cooler? It's a strain on Soos."

"Yeah, be a strain on anybody," Stan said. "Let's make a rotation so that nobody's on tram duty for more than an hour before coming inside to get outa the heat. Soos can go nine to ten, Wendy ten to eleven, I'll take eleven to twelve. Then Soos can go again, twelve to one, and I'll take one to two, Wendy two to three, Dipper can do three to four, and I'll finish up four to five. That sound OK?"

"We better stay hydrated," Wendy said. "But, yeah, I'll go for that. Soos can do the Museum tours—cooler in there. But let's do something so even those of us inside can take a little break now and then. This working straight through's killing us."

"Sheila's sleeping in," Stan said. "But I'll give her a call. I know she'll come up for three or four hours around noon, so maybe we can all get turns at twenty minutes for a quick lunch."

"That would be great, Mr. Pines, dawg. I mean Stan, dawg," Soos said.

"Then that's what we'll do," Stan said. "Hey, have you lost a little weight?"

"Twenty pounds since May," Melody said. "He's working too hard."

"Yeah, Soos, you and me gotta make some plans after the Fourth of July craziness is over. You throwin' the usual lawn party?"

"Yes, sir. We're open until noon on the Fourth, and then the picnic and games and junk out on the lawn. Unless it's like over a hundred degrees that day."

"Yeah, if it is, let's have some alternate ready. There's nothin' big downtown on the Fourth, just the fireworks at the lake that evening, and most everything will be closed. I can probably line up the Teen Center as an alternate site. Air conditioning's not the best, but it'll be cooler than the hot sun—what the-?"

All the lights had dimmed.

"Brownout," Wendy said. "They warned on the news that they'd be reducing electricity if all the air conditioners in town revved up at once. If it gets worse, they could go to a rolling blackout."

"You mean cut off the power?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah, for like an hour at a time. See, they'd do parts of the grid—cut it off downtown for an hour, then out this way, then to the east, and so on. It'd be uncomfortable for everybody, but for only one hour out of the day. Better than a total blackout, when everybody's miserable."

Soos said, "We got the emergency generator. I can start that up and hook it to the HVAC to at least keep the AC going."

"Do it," Stan said. "Let's see—Teek here yet?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes," Mabel said.

"OK, for today, he doesn't use the grill. Cold sandwiches only, chips, sodas, like that. The grill just heats things up, and people will understand. Um—free water. Push the re-usable water bottles, kids, and warn the tourists to fill them up and keep their kids and themselves hydrated. Mabel! Go design and print out signs warnin' people takin' the Mystery Tour to use sunblock and drink lotsa water."

"Say it's because the Mystery Shack cares about their good health," Wendy said.

Stan beamed. "Yeah, good point. Put that in—sell more sunblock and water bottles that way! OK, we can do this—what was that?"

The background hum of the AC system stopped—but then a half-minute later, it started again. Soos came in. "Generator's going. We need to, like, check the fuel supply once every four hours."

Stan looked at the clock. "So—half-past noon. OK, knuckleheads, heat or no heat, let's show these marks a great time!"

He said it with such energy and enthusiasm that Dipper overlooked the insults. After all, this might not be a supernatural challenge, but a challenge it was, and he—well, he was a Pines!


	12. Chapter 12

**July Heat**

**12: Seeking Advice**

(July 2-3, 2017)

* * *

It was the best of Saturdays, it was the worst of Saturdays. On the one hand, again the Shack set a record for attendance (Stan attributed that to the _Ghost Harassers _episode; Wendy thought positive reviews online had helped more). With the A/C on the generator, Soos cranked it up a little more, which used fuel faster but at least let the gift shop level off in the high eighties.

On the other, everybody who worked that day started to get cranky and irritable, and since they couldn't take that out on the customers, they quibbled with each other.

Gideon, for example, complained that Dipper got time off from the cash register to spend an hour on the Mystery Trail, and Dipper crankily retorted that next time Gideon could try it and see how much he liked being outside in hundred-plus weather. Mabel and Teek had a minor spat when Teek was finding it hard to make sandwiches as fast as people ordered them. Wendy snapped at Soos when Soos rushed people through the Museum and into the gift shop, which was already crowded.

Late that afternoon, when the Shack had closed for the evening, Stan gathered them all together and said, "Look, I want you to know I appreciate how hard you're all workin'. I know that the heat and the crowds get you down, but please, that's no reason for turnin' into jerks. That's _my_ job! OK, we got a break 'til Tuesday, which is a half-day 'cause it's Independence day, so you guys rest up. And hope for cooler weather."

Mabel said, "You could offer everybody a little bonus."

"After the way you all acted like jerks! Ha! But to show my heart's in the right place, if you can all get through Tuesday morning makin' nice, then I'll consider throwin' some extra dough your way."

"Not Stan bucks!" Mabel insisted.

"You're walkin' on thin ice, Pumpkin. OK, OK, American money, fine. But not more than twenty-five bucks each!"

"A hundred!" Mabel said.

"What are you, nuts? Thirty-five!"

Dipper said, "Grunkle Stan, you know where this is going."

"Oh, yeah. Fifty and that's it."

"That was my goal!" Mabel said.

"Yeah, I know it was," Stan told her. "But your doofus brother ended the fun."

"Boo!" Wendy said. "Don't pick on my fiancé!"

"It's OK," Dipper said wearily. "I'm used to it."

They were more than tired that evening, and after a sketchy dinner of cold sandwiches—Teek had made extra—they all went home or to their rooms to recuperate. Except for Dipper. The attic remained broiling even with the slight boost in the A/C, so he lingered downstairs. Wendy had gone to shower, and she eventually joined him in the parlor. "Too hot upstairs?" she guessed.

"Yeah, real uncomfortable," Dipper said. "I think I'll sack out on the sofa tonight."

"My room's not too bad."

"Thanks, but I'm exhausted."

She sat next to him and ruffled his hair. "Why do you work so hard?" she asked. "This is just temporary."

"I guess everything is when you think about it," He said. "That sounded more, uh, mordant than I meant. But, you know—I love this place. And Soos is a good boss, and Stan's—uh, family. Anyhow, you work just as hard as I do."

"Yeah," Wendy said. "But that's because I want to prove that I'm not terminally lazy."

"To who?" Dipper asked, laughing. "We all know that."

"To myself," Wendy said. "Guess it's that bit about being worthy of loving." She leaned against him. "Dip, you ever get scared of the future?"

"Not exactly scared," he said, putting his arm around her. "Tense, I guess. But Mabel's the one who gets so worked up over change. Parts of what we'll be up to kind of intimidate me, I guess. But parts—" he kissed her—"are going to be wonderful."

_I'll try to make them wonderful, Dipper. Tell me something, straight up: Are you worried about Mabel fooling around with magic?_

—_Now, that scares me silly. I'm going with her to talk to Great-Uncle Ford and the Hand Witch tomorrow, though. Maybe they can talk her out of trying it. Odds are that it won't work—even in Gravity Falls, magic doesn't, half the time. If not, maybe they can control it so she doesn't flood everybody out if she manages to call rain._

_Doubt that she'll bring anything. Dad says the farmers in the Valley have been doing some of the old rituals from past times. They don't work._

—_Like what?_

_Oh, like burning eagle feathers and saying some rhyme. I don't know the words, but something along the lines of "Smoke rise up and tell the clouds it's time to rain." Or catching a frog and letting it get so dry it's all like lethargic before putting it back in water and yelling to the sky that it's doing the same thing to us. Crazy stuff. 'Course there's some people that know about Native American rain dances and junk. I don't think the Oregon tribes ever had anything like that, but they say the tribes down in the Southwest all do._

—_How bad is the drought?_

_Not a record-maker. That was back in the 1930s, but I don't remember the exact years. This is pretty bad, though. Heat makes it worse._

—_Wendy? Can I ask you something?_

_Sure._

—_OK, I want to go with Mabel when she talks to Great-Uncle Ford and the Hand Witch tomorrow. For the Hand Witch, we'll have to go down into the Crawl Space. Will you go with us?_

_Yeah, dude! Somebody's got to rein Mabes in if she goes overboard, and sometimes she'll listen to me if she won't to you. Man, I think you're even more tired than I am. I can almost feel you drooping and drifting off._

—_I'm pretty tired. Thanks for agreeing._

_No problem. Dip? Uh, if you want—my offer stands. You can sleep in my room._

—_Thanks, and you know why I want to, but—like you said, I'm really tired. I'll just sack out here._

A few seconds later, he fell asleep, and Wendy felt the change. Smiling, she gently disengaged his arm and helped him lie down on the sofa. Then she went upstairs, as quietly as she could, and got his pillow. He probably wouldn't need it, but she found a light blanket, too.

Dipper had been right. Even at ten P.M. the attic was stifling. Wendy went down into cooler air and put the pillow under Dipper's head. She left the folded blanket at his feet—and she even tugged off his shoes and socks without waking him. And before going back to her room, she bent down and kissed his cheek and silently wished him pleasant dreams.

* * *

Stanford Pines listened to Mabel's proposed rain rituals with a quietly skeptical air. When she finished up and asked "Will they work?" he took a deep breath and tapped his chin with a finger.

"I can't be sure," he said. "As you say, Gravity Falls is conducive to what some would call magic. But consider the ramifications before you act."

"What are they?" Mabel asked.

Ford shrugged. "Well—you're essentially meddling with the natural order of things. Are you familiar with the concept of quantum superposition?"

"Hah!" she said. "Child's play."

"What is it?" Dipper asked her.

"Oh, Dipster, if you gotta ask, you aint' never gonna know!"

"That," he said, "is jazz, not quantum physics."

"OK," she said, giving up. "Explain it to me and dumb it down."

Ford smiled. "Let me just simplify a bit. Theoretically, any physical system can exist in a whole range of states. The classic is Schrödinger's Cat. Schrödinger puts a cat—"

"What's its name?" Mabel asked.

"It's . . . hypothetical," Ford said, blinking.

"Not much of a name. OK, Hypothetical is in a box."

"And the box is sealed."

"Wait, what? Like airtight? What kind of a monster is Schrödinger?"

"It's not a real cat," Dipper assured her. "It's imaginary."

"All right," Ford said. "Now, since the box is soundproof, the cat may be dead or may be alive. There's no way of telling. It's a case of superposition, with both possible states existing at once. Alive and dead represent two possible physical sates of the cat, do you see?"

"But the cat's imaginary. So It can't be either alive or dead," Mabel told him.

"Astute, but beside the point. If we open the box, we can find out if the cat is alive or dead."

"If it's alive, watch out. That cat is gonna be pi-, uh, peeved at you!"

"However, Schrödinger argued that _until_ the box is opened, the cat can reasonably be described as both dead and alive at the same time."

"Zombie cat, huh?" asked Mabel. "Dipper, did you have anything to do with this?"

"No!" Dipper said. "Schrödinger was a physicist. He died more than fifty years ago."

"Is _he_ in a box?" Mabel asked suspiciously. "Because if he is, how do you know?"

"Look," Dipper said, "Grunkle Ford is saying that the imaginary cat in the imaginary box is an example of superposition—state Dead and state Alive at the same time exist as potentials. When you open the box, you cause one potential to become reality—"

"Oh," Mabel said. "So doing rain magic opens the box and maybe not-raining becomes raining?"

"Sort of," Ford said. "However, consider this—if the many-worlds theory is correct, and I personally accept it because I've visited so many of the many worlds, then in causing rain to fall here, you may be depriving another dimension of that same rain."

"What have they ever done for us?" Mabel demanded. "Anyhow, I don't want to steal_ all_ their rain, just borrow enough of it to break this heat wave."

"Well—all I can say is that it's theoretically possible. But remember the law of unintended consequences."

"How much time can I do for breaking it?" Mabel asked.

"Well, none—"

"Then it's officially ignored!"

Wendy said, "Mabes, come on. Dr. P. means that if you cause rain, some of the effects are gonna be something you never anticipated. Could be bad, not good."

"And then," Dipper said, "you'd want to do another magic spell to counteract the bad effect, and that one would have unintended consequences, too—"

"OK, OK, I get it," Mabel said. "But I'm gonna shoot for just a day or two of steady rain, all right? No flooding, no Noah's Arky stuff. So any unintended whatevers should be minor."

She further told Ford about her plans to consult the Hand Witch—whom Ford knew—and he made her promise to abide by whatever limitations the Hand Witch recommended. And then Mabel thanked him, and she, Wendy, and Dipper—Teek had opted out for the trip, though he'd agreed to help if Mabel needed assistance with her magic spell—went back uphill to the Shack and out onto the Mystery Trail and into the stinky, disused outhouse.

Stan had dubbed it the Outhouse of Mystery, for the reason that sometimes when you went into it to have a nice private sit-down, time got wonky. You might think you'd spent only ten minutes—and your watch might confirm this—but when you stepped out again, it could be two or three hours later in the rest of the world.

The time-slip effect actually resulted from the outhouse's being one of the two known entrances to the Crawl Space, a huge, irregularly-shaped cavern about fifty to a hundred feet underground that partly underlay the town of Gravity Falls and twisted as far as near the Shack. The Crawl Space was a neutral spot where the more sentient of the Gravity Falls monsters conducted their business. In fact, the Crawl Space was the Marketplace of Mystery, Madness, and Monstrosities.

Humans were not welcome there.

That is, they hadn't been until a beast called the Rumbelow—a sub-species of phoenix—had devastated it some time before. The twins and their friends had helped out then, resulting in a kind of uneasy détente. If humans came down there nowadays, the denizens wouldn't eat them. Probably.

But they would be ignored.

"Cooler down here!" Wendy said once they had performed the ritual and the outhouse had transported them down.

"Not hardly as stinky, either," Mabel agreed. "Come on—it's early, and they're still setting up shop."

Some Gnomes—the friendliest of the underground denizens—were getting ready to open a gemstone-and-jam store, and they helpfully pointed the three to the spot where the Hand Witch had her booth.

They found it, but the Witch wasn't in. Instead of her squat, strange form, a short but handsome middle-aged woman was setting up shelves and laying out watches and rings.

"'Scuse me," Mabel said, and she turned around and smiled. "We're looking for the owner—the Hand Witch."

"I'm the Hand Witch," the woman said.

"Huh?" Mabel tilted her head. "What happened to you? A makeover? Witches are old and ugly!"

The woman glanced around, but no one and no monster was close. "Let me change." She snapped her fingers, dwindled, and became the grotesque Hand Witch, with a green complexion, mismatched eyes, and hands for feet. "There we go, dearie! This here's my business suit, you might call it. Nobody takes a witch seriously unless she's, like you say, mature and plain."

_Plain _was actually a compliment in her case, but Dipper didn't say anything. Five years earlier, Mabel had hooked the Hand Witch up with her husband, who was not too bright but cheerful and obedient—a big plus—and whose main ambition was to be a house-husband. They were the oddest of couples, but seemed happy. Anyway, the Witch had a soft spot for Mabel.

"Listen," Mabel said, "I want some help, but I don't want to cost you customers."

"Oh, we have a couple of hours until traffic picks up," the Hand Witch said. "What's your problem? Lay it on me and I'll see if I can help."

Mabel explained, and the Witch listened, nodding. "Yep, I get where you're coming from," she said. "The nights have been hot, even up in the mountains. I have to admit, weather magic isn't my specialty—I'm more into body horror—but run your spells past me and I'll tell you which ones I think might just work."

Mabel did, one by one. The Witch nodded when Mabel mentioned tossing the flints—"Oh, yeah, Earth magic, I'm down with that. Here, I'll write down an incantation that might limit it so's you don't call in a monsoon."

Similarly, she liked the water-in-a-pot suggestion. "Water magic, another elemental spell. That one's kinda weak, but it could work. Make sure you stir the water widdershins."

Mabel blinked. "Uh—Graunty Lorena was a widow, but I don't know if I can get a big enough pot for her to stick her legs in—"

Dipper explained that "widdershins" just meant "counterclockwise." Again the Hand Witch wrote down an incantation.

She turned thumbs down on six other possible spells—either they wouldn't work, or they "messed with karma, and you don't want that." And finally, she suggested one other possible spell—"This is a mild one, and any witch starts out by learning weak magic like this one."

By then a few monsters were shopping—and a few of them, Dipper noticed, were going into Skinny Dude's Gym, where monsters could slim down while learning how to grow tentacles at the same time. "Time to go, I think," he said.

He, Wendy, and Mabel threaded through the caverns, waving at a Maul Cop they knew, and passed by the Gnomes again, who hardly noticed them because they were doing a hot business in jams.

Then back to the portal platform, up to the stench of the Mystery Outhouse, and out into the open again. They'd spent three hours underground, but Dipper said, "Just five minutes have passed out here."

"Good," Mabel said. "We can try out these spells before the heat sets in. What are we waiting for? Let's get our ingredients and then go for it!"

Wendy glanced at Dipper. "You ready for this, man?"

"I feel like a cat in a box," Dipper said. "But let's do it."


	13. Chapter 13

**July Heat**

**13: Witch Way?**

(July 2-3, 2017)

* * *

Because of the minor time slip, Wendy, Dipper, and Mabel reached the top of Spaceship Hill—as Dipper thought of it—still early in the morning. The sun was coming up beyond the broken cliffs to the east.

"You got the chant?" Mabel asked.

"I wrote it down phonetically," Dipper said. "The Hand Witch didn't even say what language it was in, but, yeah, I got it."

"Do you need any of this junk?" Wendy asked. She had a small bag of ingredients the Hand Witch had sold Mabel—a little sachet with about an ounce of heather buds in it, a sprig of dried fern tied with loose cotton fibers, and a very tiny vial with maybe a quarter ounce of henbane oil inside it.

"Nope, this just calls for the rocks and the chant. Let me rehearse that."

Dipper handed her the notebook page. She read it over and over, her lips moving. Finally she handed it back and said, "See if I got my lines. I'm not gonna chant this time, just say them, OK?"

"All right," Dipper said. "Just recite it slowly."

"Nox g'kov feq'o wak'x viar'w," she said, stumbling over the parts with the apostrophes. "Am I pronouncing that right?"

"Who even knows?" Dipper asked. Mabel bent to pick up the five arrowheads, and he said, "Wait, wait, think about this. If word gets out about your doing this, some people in the Valley aren't gonna be happy. Remember that time Mr. Sprott thought you were a witch? He was ready to call out a gang with torches and pitchforks!"

"I'm not being a witch!" Mabel insisted. "I'm just trying a little weather magic. OK, let's do this! I throw these over my left shoulder, toward the East, and I say the chant three times. Nobody look where the stones land. Ready?"

They looked at her instead. She threw the five arrowheads over her shoulder, one by one, while she faced west. Then she repeated the chant, this time sounding all stately and chanty:

"Nox g'kov feq'o wak'x viar'w! "Nox g'kov feq'o wak'x viar'w! "Nox g'kov feq'o wak'x viar'w! But just enough to break the drought and cool things off, OK?"

Dipper said, "That last part—"

"I thought it up myself," Mabel said. "Any change?"

"I don't know for sure," Wendy said, "but I think the sky in the east is a little redder than it's been the past few days."

Dipper shaded his eyes. "I think so, too. That's probably a good sign. 'Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailors delight.'"

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Mabel asked.

"Old weather superstition. If the eastern sky is red in the morning, it's because there's a build-up of dust and water vapor. That means there's a possibility of rainy weather. If the evening sky is redder, that means the rain's probably already passed by."

"Let's get back to the Shack and do the next one," Mabel said.

They went out to the bonfire clearing for the second effort. First Mabel set an earthenware bowl down on top of the firepit. It was an old Mexican hand-thrown pottery bowl of glazed red clay, but it had at some point been cracked, and Abuelita no longer used it. Wendy emptied a couple of canteens of water in it—water taken from Cold Creek, because it was supposed to be natural water—and said, "There you go, Mabes. Do your stuff."

Mabel rotated her hand in a circle. "This way, right? Widow's shins?"

"Widdershins," Dipper corrected. "It comes from two ancient German words, meaning _against direction_. It's against the way the sun moves in the sky or something."

"That makes a lot of sense," Mabel said. "Where's the henbane stuff?"

"Here you go, Wendy said, handing her the tiny bottle. She uncapped it and emptied the oil into the water—about six drops. "Now, be careful," Wendy warned. "Henbane is toxic. Of course this stuff is only about one per cent henbane, so it's probably harmless. Is there a chant?"

"I'll just make up my own," Mabel said. "OK, I'm starting." She knelt beside the bowl and dipped her fingers in it. As she stirred it counterclockwise, she said solemnly, "When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the rain has come and gone, when the temperature is down. Nature, don't make me out a fool, bring some rain and make us cool."

"Pure poetry," Dipper said. "But you stole part of it from _Mac_—"

"Sh-sh-sh!" Mabel said urgently. "You're supposed to say the Scottish Play, remember?"

"I think I told you about that superstition," he said. "Yes, I remember the curse on the play." He looked up. "But I don't notice any change in the weather."

"That's OK. I got one last one to go. For this we need a small campfire."

Wendy made a compact pile of kindling, not bothering with any logs—it didn't have to last long or be a big fire. The pine splinters caught fast and burned with a crackle. "Back off a little," Mabel said. "I have to send the smoke up to the sky. Dip, got that last spell?"

"Here you are," he said, handing her the one he had labeled _Fire_. "It's phonetic, too. I think it's Latin. It's Latin-y, anyhow."

She tossed the heather onto the fire as she started to read the spell, and then the fern bound with cotton: "Spiritus auras fumus feni mittam te. Spiritibus et pallium breve de nubibus ego mitto te fumus filicumque maniplis. Beatus pluvia et spiritibus ego mitto te fumus bombacio. Ecce, et pluviis incipit!"

"I doubt anyone who speaks Latin could understand that," Dipper said.

"Meh, good enough for weather work. That's it. Think it did any good?"

"Time will tell," Wendy said.

"Yeah, or maybe not," Dipper said. "If it does rain in the next couple of days, Mabel will think she caused it. If it doesn't, she'll just say there's something wrong with the spells. That's the trouble with magic. People who try it are always fooling themselves."

The tops of the pine trees were waving and rustling.

"Anyway, there's a breeze, and that's better," Wendy said. "Make it a little bit cooler."

They walked back down the trail. By the time they reached the Shack, the wind had picked up—it became strong enough to send a few dry leaves, some grass clippings, and dust up into the air. The sky remained clear, though.

Mabel spent most of that afternoon outside, looking hopefully up at the sky. It didn't help—no rain came, and she complained that afternoon: "What do I have to do, sacrifice a chicken? All that work and no results!"

"Be patient," Dipper advised her. "Maybe the moisture from the rain has to come all the way from the North Pacific. It's cooler, anyway—just ninety so far today, and that's probably as high as it's gonna get. The breeze helps a lot."

"But I wanted the Falls to be all full and everything by the Fourth! It won't be the same with it down to like a third of normal."

Wendy said, "I wonder how those jelly people are making out in this weather. They might just dry up and die."

"What are you talking about?" Mabel asked.

Dipper cleared his throat. "Well, we think there are some sort of jelly-like humanoids in the caverns behind the Falls. They depend on moisture, and if it gets too dry, they sort of change into a powder and hibernate or something."

"Let's go see!" Mabel said.

"No!" Both Wendy and Dipper yelled it at the same moment. Then Wendy said, "Mabes, they're dangerous. Take it from us. Not worth fooling with. They don't like humans, and humans can't reason with them. Just leave them alone."

Dipper had been reading page proofs for his next young-adult novel—the one that dealt with the Palms twins having romantic woes, the sister becoming the object of a young warlock's affections (Dipper had thoroughly disguised Gideon, and he wasn't even going to bring a Bill Cipher figure into the plot), while the brother struggled with his crush on a beautiful—but older—teen girl who worked in the same tourist trap as the twins did. Though it resembled things that had happened to Dipper and Mabel during the summer of 2012, this time he'd fictionalized it much more thoroughly than before, and he was wondering how readers would react.

That evening after dinner, Wendy went out to check the weather and came back in looking excited. "Mabes, you might have done the trick. Come out and look!"

Dipper went, too. A layer of cloud, gray in the late-afternoon light, was sliding over the Valley like the lid of a spice tin. "Not thunderclouds," Dipper said. "That's something, anyway."

"Stratus clouds," Wendy said.

"What's that mean?" Mabel asked.

"Rain, usually," Dipper told her.

"Look at the moon," Wendy added. "It's real red."

Dipper saw that the waxing crescent did indeed look ruddy. "Is that a sign of rain?"

"Yeah," she said, sounding surprised. "Anyway, the farmers say that. Feels like rain, too—sort of damp but not muggy."

"I did it!" Mabel said.

"Maybe," Dipper cautioned. "Remember, if rain comes, it might have been on the way to begin with."

They argued about it a little, and when Dipper checked that day's forecast on line, Mabel grew even more smug:

* * *

Central Oregon: Heat wave continues. Mostly sunny weather, with a high of 104 and a low of 78. Some possibility of thunderstorms mid-week.

* * *

"Well," Wendy said, "I'll give you this: It didn't get nearly that hot. More like ninety-two, and a whole lot less humid."

"I think I'd settle for that," Dipper said.

Still later, when Mabel let Tripper out for his nightly potty break, she yelled, "Guys! Come here!"

They stood on the porch and heard the steady patter of rain. It was not heavy, but it dripped from the eaves and tapped on the dry grass in the yard. Tripper went to the edge of the woods, did what he had to do, and scampered back. On the porch he shook himself, spraying them with a little water—not much, but some.

They all stepped out. It wasn't exactly like stepping into a shower—but it was a little more than a sprinkle, if a lot less than a torrent. Mabel raised her arms and twirled. "I got it right! I got it exactly right!"

"As long as it stays like this," Dipper said.

"Wet blanket!" Mabel yelled.

"I'm going in," Wendy said. "I have to admit, it feels kinda nice—but I don't want to have to dry my hair all over again!"

Wendy and Dipper stayed up late enough to catch the 11:00 news on the local station. Toby Determined was not broadcasting—he was ardent at grabbing as much camera time as possible, but the station did have rotating shifts—and Bentley Broadman, younger and smoother than Toby, had the honors: "And Roadkill County got a pleasant surprise this evening as a change in the jet stream brought rain and cooler weather in from the northwest. Our weather wizardess Karen Bullit has more on that. Kay?"

Karen Bullet, trim and blonde—"Why are they all so trim and blonde?" Wendy asked a little irritably—stood in front of a huge radar map of the area. It was all orange, yellow, and green. "Thanks, Bentley, and here's the big picture. The cooler air is under-riding the hot, humid air that has made life so unpleasant this last week, and as the warmer air rises, the moisture condenses out. Now, this is what we call a shelf front, meaning it's going to lift more and more of this moisture-rich air up and, hopefully, give us at least a couple of inches of much-needed rain as well as relief from the heat. The revised forecast tells us to look for a high tomorrow in the mid-eighties—twenty degrees lower than Friday! And that rain will most likely slide on out before sunrise on Tuesday, giving us a very pleasant Fourth of July."

Dipper switched the TV off. "I guess we'll need to do something special for Mabel," he said.

"We'll think of something tomorrow." Wendy yawned. "'Scuse me! Listen, is the rain getting harder?"

They listened. "I think a little," Dipper said.

"Shoot, I thought that tomorrow we could go on a nice hike if the weather cooled off and it got clear."

"Well, another time," Dipper said. "And maybe it'll help the farmers."

They said their good-nights, but that wasn't quite the end of it. Some time deep in the night, Wendy shook him awake. "Dipper!" she said, keeping her voice low. "Come and look at what's going on."

He pushed himself up in bed. "What's that noise?"

"The rain's a lot harder and—come and see."

"Let me put some pants on."

"Dude, it doesn't matter right now. Come on!"

So, just in undershirt and boxer briefs, he tiptoed down the stairs with her. Though Soos had long since repaired the rickety stairs, he had built in a few squeaks for old times' sake, but Dipper knew which steps to avoid and which ones wouldn't groan if he kept his feet close to the wall. Down in the vestibule the rain drummed harder than ever. Wendy carefully opened the door, and the downpour roared.

"Whoa!" Dipper said

Wendy turned on a big six-battery flashlight. "I know, right? But look close."

She centered the oval of light on the ground just next to the porch steps. Something pale—no, a lot of things that were pale—bounced and bounded. "What's that?" Dipper asked. "Hail? It's not thundering or—"

She impatiently grasped his wrist. "Come on!"

"We'll get soaked!"

"We can dry off later! Come and look!"

The rain was heavy, but not pelting. It really was like entering a cool shower now. Something clung to Dipper's leg, and he reached to brush it off, but it leaped free.

"Is it raining _frogs_?" Dipper asked.

Wendy, her red hair already plastered down, held out her hand, palm up. A pale-green, quite small frog took a couple of steps, blinked in the glare of the flashlight, and leaped into the dark. "A Pacific tree frog," Wendy said. "_Pseudacris regilla. _These are immature—the grown ones are about twice as big. Still only two inches—whoops! Look at your feet—right in front of your toes—is that—?"

"Looks like a tiny little fish!"

"A minnow," Wendy said. Dipper stood in about two inches of rainwater, and three or four of the silvery fish darted here and there, frantically. "I think it's an Oregon chub, but I'm not sure. Rainin' frogs and fish, Dip! Who was the dude who wrote the books about that kind of stuff?"

"Dr. Crackpot? Or maybe Charles Fort," Dipper said. "It's really coming down! Are all these fish and frogs gonna die?"

"Depends, I guess," Wendy said loudly, over the constant roar of rain. "If there's enough water to wash the fish into the creek beds, they'll be OK. If they're chubs, that's actually good—they've been on the endangered list. The frogs, they'll be fine, long as they don't get hurt in falling."

They found a puddle. It teemed with tiny, darting fish and paddling frogs, to all appearances healthy and whole.

They sloshed back to the Mystery Shack and shambled in, dripping. "Hang loose," Wendy said. She slipped down the hall and came back with an armful of big towels. She used one to mop up the trail of water she'd left in the hall, and they more or less sopped up a lot of the rain that had fallen on them.

Wendy put her finger to her lips and led the way back to the attic. When she turned on the light, Dipper saw how her tank top and sleep shorts clung to her very tightly, and he couldn't blame them. In the bathroom, she said, "I'll finish drying you if you'll do me."

"By that you mean—"

"Just dry me, dude!" she said.

When they were only a bit damp, except for their clothes—Dipper's underwear and tee shirt were sodden—they went to his room and changed those. Well, Dipper put on dry underpants and a dry tee, and Wendy slipped into one of his longer shirts.

"What time is it?" Dipper asked.

"About three-thirty. Good thing we don't have to work tomorrow."

He sat on his bed. "I hope this isn't going to turn into a flood," he said.

"Well—we've got a ways to go before that. It's been so dry for so long. Listen to that—rain on the roof. Sounds kinda romantic."

She turned off the flashlight.

"Little mental make-out session?" Dipper asked softly.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Wendy said in a throaty whisper. "I expected you to suggest that five minutes ago!"

Then she was in his arms, wearing very little, and he was in hers, wearing very little, they stretched out on his too-narrow bed, and they spent a wonderful hour before she kissed him and said, "Can't wait until it's real," and slipped away down the stairs.

Leaving Dipper to lie back, contented, but worried.

Because the rain sure didn't sound like it was letting up.


	14. Chapter 14

**July Heat**

**14: Rain, Rain**

(July 3, 2017)

* * *

Monday morning, and the rain continued—lighter, a steady shower, not a pouring drench of rain, but the water came down regardless. At breakfast, Soos worried about the Gnomes. "Dipper, dawg, could you, like, call Jeff and see if the little guys need help? The last time we had a huge rain, some of them, their tunnels got filled up."

Jeff had the official Gnome cell phone—they had just the one, and most Gnomes didn't quite trust tech like that. Also, they complained that when they spoke Gnomish, the words came out more like a crackle of static over the phone, though that, just possibly, was the result of Gnomish being heavy on kh-, velar fricatives, and aspirated apostrophe vocalizations.

However Jeff was very fluent in English (many of the younger Gnomes were actually studying it in the recently-organized Gnome School), he was the chief liaison in Gnome-human relationships, and besides, he liked to play Color Hole.

Dipper called him and got him right away—Gnomes were half nocturnal, half early risers, and Jeff fell into the latter half. When Dipper asked the question, Jeff sounded genuinely touched: "Thank Soos for us, but we sent a crew down to check on our cousins, and the new water seals are holding. There aren't as many ferals now as there used to be, since so many of them decided to be civilized after the last floods, and our Gnomegineers have helped them make their burrows more water-safe."

"Gnomegineers?" Dipper asked.

"Like engineers, but they use more magic."

"Well, if this keeps up and you need help—"

"Thanks, Dipper. We'll keep that in mind."

The morning weather report noted that the previous night's downpour had dumped about three inches of rain in the Valley, very little outside it, and that the front had stalled out. "The good news," Toby Determined said, "is that the rain has steadied off at about a quarter of an inch an hour. The bad news is that we don't know when it will stop. However, since Roadkill County was six inches below average up until yesterday, we can probably take a little more rain."

Mabel asked Wendy, Dipper, and Teek, "Do you think I screwed up?"

"Yes," Teek said. "But you meant well."

"I don't know about that," Dipper told her. "Maybe you didn't cause the rain at all—it could have been just a normal shift in the weather pattern. That happens, you know. The drought was bound to end, and maybe it was just coincidental that the rain came in when it did."

"Don't do what you're thinking, though," Wendy said.

Mabel blinked. "You told me you and Dip couldn't read minds!"

"We can't," Dipper said. "Except each other's. But we know you. You're thinking of finding some rain-ending spell. Don't try it. There's better than a fifty-fifty chance it would only make things worse."

"Grunkle Stan would take those odds!"

"But he's crazy lucky anyhow," Wendy said. "Don't risk it, OK?"

Mabel sighed. "OK. Sorry for ruining your daily run."

"That's all right," Dipper said. "We can afford to take some time off."

"Well," Teek said, "what do we want to do on a rainy day?"

"Don't ask me," Mabel muttered. "I'm like the Cat in the Hat. I'd just mess it up."

"You mean Seuss it up, dawg," said Soos, who was passing by. "Hey, I wonder if I could, like, write kid's books for first-graders? I could be like Mr. Soos! I do fanfic, you know."

"Give it a shot," Wendy said. "Worst comes to worst, you can read your stuff to your own kids."

"Inspiration!" Soos said. "Let me see: 'The Llama Whose Mama Was into Drama. It's got possibilities." He wandered off.

"Hey, I've got the DVD set of _Strangeness Reigns_ at home," Teek said. "I could go get it and we could have a marathon. Or has everybody seen it already?"

Nobody had but him—probably because it had come out the previous summer on a premium channel that was unavailable in Gravity Falls. "What's it about?" Mabel asked.

"Well, there's this little town, see, and one night this kid disappears, and his friends start to track him down, but there's a secret facility that opens a portal to this strange dimension, where there's a monster—"

"Wait a sec," Wendy said indignantly. "Dipper, they're stealing your stuff!"

"I . . . don't think so," Dipper said. "Anybody can use elements like that in fiction. But I'd have to see it to be sure."

"Good way to kill one hour, maybe," Mabel said.

"No, it's a mini-series. Eight hours long," Teek said. "I've seen it, but it's the kind of thing you want to watch more than once, because there are all sorts of hidden references and plot points that you miss the first time around. I think it's really good. Uh, scary, though, so—"

"Scary's good," Mabel said. "But we probably shouldn't watch it down here, where Little Soos and Harmony might wander in. Dipper, if we took the old flat screen up to the attic, could we watch it there?"

"Sure," Dipper said. "Wait, does the old one still work?"

"Oh, yeah. Soos just bought one with a bigger screen 'cause Abuelita couldn't read the subtitles on this one. It's only a thirty-six incher."

"OK," Wendy said. "You and Teek go get the DVD, and me and Dipper will haul the TV upstairs and tidy up."

"Yeah," Mabel said. "Midnight booty calls can leave a room messy."

"_What_?" Dipper asked.

"Nothing," Mabel said, all innocence.

* * *

With the rain still trickling off the eaves and splashing on the triangular window, they made the attic into a cozy nest—pillows and blankets on the floor, a huge bowl of popcorn, a cooler with sodas, the TV set up on the floor, the lights out. About halfway through the first episode, Dipper saw that the producers hadn't borrowed anything from his book series. The show was much more adult-oriented—and much less humorous—than his YA books.

Tripper even came upstairs and cuddled up between the two couples to watch the TV. He didn't have much interest in most of it, but when the screen gave them glimpses of the monster, he straightened up and watched intently. The previous winter Mabel and Dipper had discovered that, unlike most dogs, he recognized himself in his reflection in a mirror—if you quietly put a treat behind him, but visible to him in the mirror, he turned around in the correct direction to get it and didn't go for the reflection.

He could be fooled now and then by dogs on TV, though—if an aggressive one showed up on screen, Tripper would jump up and bark at it. Mabel said he was being a critic, but Dipper thought his dog instincts just took over.

Anyway, the _Strangeness Reigns _binge let Mabel snuggle with Teek, squeal now and then at the jump scares, and apparently forget about the rain.

They did break for lunch and afterward went out on the front porch to look at the weather, which could be summarized best as _gray and wet_. Evidently the wildlife fall of the previous night had been a short one—Dipper saw no minnows swimming in the puddles, anyway.

They finished their marathon that afternoon. Mabel stretched and said, "Well, that's probably good for a nightmare or two."

"Not as scary as some of the stuff we've seen, though," Teek said.

"Granted," Mabel said. "Dipper with a five-day scruff of beard—"

"Enough," Dipper said.

They decided to wait to haul the TV downstairs and for a while sat around the dining-room table playing poker variations for toothpicks. Then at six the news came on TV, and they saw Toby Determined again, this time dressed up in a yellow hooded rain slicker.

"He looks like he's selling fish sticks," Mabel said.

"He looks more like a fish in a raincoat," Wendy said.

"You win!"

But on screen, Toby said, "Band news, Gravity Falls! It looks like this rain will persist at least through tomorrow night. The fireworks have been cancelled."

"Oh, no!" Mabel said. "And it's my fault!"

"No big deal," Dipper said, hiding his disappointment. His and Wendy's first real kiss had come on a Fourth of July fireworks night, and they liked to celebrate the anniversary.

"I'm gonna go see Grunkle Ford," Mabel said. "There must be something I can do."

Dipper sloshed down the hill with her. "Come on, Sis, even if you did start this rain, leave well enough alone. It'll move out before long."

"But not before fireworks night!" she said. "Maybe we can find a way to stop it."

However, Stanford Pines didn't know of one. "I'm sorry, Mabel, but I have to agree with Dipper. Let well enough alone. There's an old saying, 'Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.'"

"Mark Twain," said Dipper.

"Actually, Charles Dudley Warner," Stanford said. "He was a collaborator with Mark Twain, though."

"Oh." Dipper felt obscurely embarrassed.

"No matter," Ford said. "On the bright side, if you did bring on the rain and it wasn't just happenstance, then you've probably saved the crops of half the farmers in the county. The rivers and streams are filling back up. I'd say if you asked most people, they'd tell you it's worth losing a holiday to do that amount of good."

So they trudged back uphill, through the steady light rain. "I'd go ask the Hand Witch again," Mabel muttered, "but she doesn't do weather magic herself, and she'd probably say Grunkle Ford is right. Remember when I tried to counteract the love potion the Love God gave me when I zapped Tambry and Robbie?"

"'Gave?' The way he tells it, you pick-pocketed him!"

"I did not! It wasn't in his pocket, it was on his futility belt. But that doesn't matter. That time I got the spell reverser, but—well, Robbie and Tambry seemed so happy together. And it turned out they were fated to fall in love, 'cause the potion wore off after like two hours."

"I think the take-away point is that you would have made things worse, not better, if you'd spritzed Tambry and Robbie with the spell-reversal gunk," Dipper said.

"I don't know. Maybe you're right. Toby did say that the front was moving slowly again." After a moment of silence, Mabel said, "Don't go in just yet. I want to say—hey, I'm sorry for the 'booty call' remark."

"It's OK," Dipper said, smiling. "Wendy did wake me up in the middle of the night to show me it was raining frogs."

"Wish you'd dragged me out to see them."

"It was way late," Dipper said. "And they were just tiny little tree frogs. Hey, that's something else you can be happy about—they've been on the endangered list, and you've helped them out!"

"Yay me," Mabel said. "But the booty call thing—I heard you both go upstairs and then like an hour later Wendy came down alone. She doesn't know how to dodge the creaky steps as well as you do. I mean, an hour together, alone, in a bedroom, rain on the roof? What was I supposed to think? Anyhow, you're engaged."

"We did some snuggling," Dipper admitted. "But that's it."

"Well—sorry anyway, Brobro."

"It's OK, really."

Teek went home soon after that. Mabel continued to mope. After dinner, Wendy and Dipper dropped in on Grunkle Stan and Sheila, and Dipper told them the story.

"Meh," Stan said, "I bet it woulda happened anyhow. We've had spells of rain like this before. Not so much in the summer, but it has happened. Look, when you get back, tell her, worst-case scenario, we'll postpone the Fourth celebration to next Saturday. Bound to clear up by then. Soos can have just a regular day in the Shack tomorrow, and then we'll throw an all-day party at the lake on Saturday. It works with Summerween, so why not with Independence Day?"

"Fireworks and all?" Wendy asked.

"Sure thing!" Stan said. "Hey, I throw the fireworks displays nowadays, you know. I won't pass up a chance to shoot off about two thousand bucks' worth of rockets and firecrackers." He rubbed his nose and then grinned. "Hey, tell Mabel I said I'll let her fire off the first rocket herself. That oughta cheer her up!"

So—well, that was something.

If only the rain would indeed stop before Saturday.


	15. Chapter 15

**July Heat**

**15: Go Away**

(July 3, 2017)

* * *

The Hand Witch had been doing a good business all that Monday. As she started to pack up her booth, she heard a familiar, but tentative voice: "Um—hi. Am I interrupting?"

She spun around as fast as hands-for-feet could shuffle. "Mabel! What are you doing here so late? And all alone? And you're wet!"

The Pines twin stood there alone, in a pink rain poncho, though her brown hair looked soaked. Nodding, Mabel rubbed her arm and gave a sideways look at the floor. Wait, she's in a cavern. Not the floor, the earth. Or whatever the Crawl Space had down there. "Um, yeah, I think the spells you gave me worked. It's raining."

"I know, I know," the Hand Witch said, sounding happy. "I sold fifteen Numbrellas in the last two days."

"And it's all my fault."

"Thank you."

"Um—don't mention it—but what are Numbrellas?"

The witch rummaged around in a storage bin. "Here. Try it. Just open it up like a regular umbrella—"

Mabel did and held it above her head. It was gray and spotted and looked like a big mushroom cap. "Huh."

"It's raining buckets outside," the Witch said.

Mabel shrugged. "I don't care."

"Your boyfriend is going to move away."

"Meh . . . so what?"

The Witch reached out and said, "Give it back. I can't sell these to humans."

"OK."

The second she'd collapsed the Numbrella, Mabel said, "Agh! Teek's leaving and I won't see him for five whole months! And all this rain is my fault, and everybody's going to hate me!" She started to sob.

"There, there," the Witch said. "Here you go, dearie. You can keep this."

Mabel took from her a dainty lace handkerchief. "Th-thanks—"

"That's what a Numbrella is, Mabel. It keeps the rain off you, but it keeps the rotten day from bothering you, too. It's an anesthetic for your feelings. Monsters need it because they don't have any self-control. We humans can get along without one. Well, I'm mostly human. Feeling better?"

After blowing her nose, Mabel nodded, though her lip still trembled. "I need a spell to—"

"No," the Witch said firmly. "No, you don't. Did you come down here all by yourself, Mabel?"

Mabel grimaced. "Yeah. I didn't want my brother or Wendy to know how stupid I was."

"Mm-hmm. Well, I'll just pack my bag and walk you back. Which lift did you take?"

"The one that comes out in the outhouse near the Mystery Shack."

"Yes, of course. Here, dearie, help an old woman."

Mabel handed her things—what they were she didn't know, because the Witch would just point and say, "And that half-sphere with ears in it—thank you. And that rod with a silver ball at each end—that goes here," and so on. The satchel she stuffed it all into must have been magic, or maybe the Witch had borrowed it from Mary Poppins, because everything fit, although not everything could possibly fit. "Thanks," the Hand Witch said. "Be a dear and carry my bag, would you?"

Mabel hefted it and almost tossed it over her head—it weighed hardly anything. "Magic?" she asked.

The Witch gave her a look. "I _am_ a witch, dearie. All right, everything stored, I have my key, just about ready." She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, and a crude broom—well, it didn't make rude, vulgar remarks, but it was a knobby stick with a bundle of straws lashed to the end—zoomed from nowhere and she caught it.

"You fly on a broom?" Mabel asked.

"It's the only way to fly," the Witch said with a wink.

Mabel just looked at her.

The Witch sighed. "You're too young to remember it. Come along."

They walked through the Crawl Space, which remained open 24/7, with hucksters, hawkers, drummers, pitchmen (pitchmonsters), and salesmen calling out cheerful greetings as they passed. The Hand Witch seemed very popular. They even passed a troll costermonger, who said in a jaunty voice, "Hey, thanks for stopping my hare loss. Now I got more rabbits than I know what to do with! Here, have a coster on the house!"

The Witch accepted some sort of mutant fruit, blush-pink, that grew in, well, a very suggestive shape. "Thank you, Lionel," she said, unfastening the bag and carefully storing the coster inside. "Have a good night!"

When they got out of the main cavern and were going down the tunnel that led to what Mabel thought of as the launch pad, the Witch slowed her pace. She muttered something, and Mabel saw her transform into her handsome, middle-aged guise. She straightened and smiled and said, "It's good to get out of my working outfit. Mabel, there's a bench. Let's sit there and let me catch my breath."

Though she didn't seem to be out of breath, Mabel sat next to her. "You're gonna tell me off, aren't you?"

The Witch stroked her damp hair reassuringly. "No, dearie. You've already told yourself off. I just want to talk about a few things. First, do you know why I won't give you a spell for dry weather?"

"Because I'd mess it up again," Mabel said.

The Witch shook her head. "That's down the list, about number seven. The main reason is that you aren't a natural-born witch, and you don't want to be a witch. You may be toying with the idea, but take it from me, you don't want to be a witch. Magic is tricksy stuff, dearie."

"But you do it."

"That I do, but I'm the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. I was born to it and raised to it, and I went into it knowing the rules. You don't just dabble in magic, Mabel. It's all your heart or nothing, and most witches are very lonely people because of that. Now, you say the spells worked."

"They did. It's been raining since Sunday, and tomorrow's the Fourth of July, and the rain will ruin the whole party, and—and it's my fault."

"Mm-hmm," the Witch said. "The first thing you need to know about magic, Mabel, is that it comes with a price. If you're not willing to pay, the spell you don't say. That's the way my granny put it, anyhow, daft old besom."

"There should be a warning label," Mabel muttered. "But, yeah, I know it's all on me."

The Witch closed her eyes and whispered a few words, and then shook her head. "Sorry, Mabel. The bad news is that the rain will continue until Wednesday morning, and I can't do anything magical to stop that. The good news is that it will stop by Wednesday noon, and the whole Valley is the better for it. Streams are filling, the fish are multiplying, the trees are being nourished, the plants are growing. All in all, you did a lot of good. The downside is the cost, and the cost is how bad you feel."

Mabel thought about that. "OK," she said at last. "I guess—I guess I can pay that. It's worth it to, you know—everybody else."

"And that will keep you from ever being a true witch," the Hand Witch said kindly. "You'd always feel the cost. Have you ever wondered how a kind person who's a veterinarian can stand to put down a sick dog or horse? How one feels afterward? Or how a doctor feels, who has to amputate a child's leg to save his life?"

"It must be rough," Mabel said.

"Aye, so it is. A true Witch must be able to steel herself and to swallow her feelings, or she'd never dare to perform a work of craft. That's why so many of us turn evil—it's like swallowing acid until we're sour clean through. But there's always a steep price for magic—and only if a woman's tough and strong can she resist it and keep her human feelings and not become a cackling old hag. It's hard, Mabel. So—from now on, steer clear of casting magic spells, all right?"

Mabel nodded. "I guess that's good advice."

"Thank you. One other little piece of advice: Humans are tolerated nowadays in the Crawl Space, but—" she held up a warning finger—"_but_ humans should always come down here in a group, if at all. Lots of monsters still resent, fear, and hate humans. And any number of 'em would prey on a lone human woman. How old are you now?"

"Seventeen."

"Mm-hmm. Most of the magical races down here would consider you a woman. You're probably safe from the Skinny Dude—he only lures children. But the Grouch would try to seduce you. And some would take you for, um . . . spare parts. I don't want to talk about that. Anyway, promise me that you'll never, ever come to the Crawl Space all alone again. You don't have the protection that your friend Wendy does."

"Huh?" Mabel asked. "Oh. You mean her axe."

"I don't," the Witch said. "Wendy Corduroy can walk safe pretty nearly anywhere she wants—oh, she could be hurt, even killed, if whatever attacked her wasn't intelligent or was crazy enough to try it and quick and strong enough to do it. Odds are they'd learn a lesson right quick, but there's always the small chance she'd lose. Now, most of the Crawl Spacers just look at her and understand that she walks with her own special, well, not guardian exactly—call it aura. You know how a rattlesnake rattles? It's like that. 'Keep away from me for your own good!' Something about a Corduroy tells any sensible creature, 'Don't try to eat this one. It's bad news for enemies.'"

"Whoa," Mabel said. "My Brobro's gonna marry her!"

"The aura doesn't work if she loves somebody," the Witch said with a smile. She tapped her nose. "Dipper is luckier than he even knows, and he thinks he's pretty darn lucky! But anyway, if you come back to the Crawl Space—and I'm not forbidding you, mind, just telling you to use caution—at least get Wendy to walk with you."

"Thanks." Mabel sighed. "So—noon Wednesday, right?"

"That's what my second sight tells me. But don't despair. Maybe your picnic is off, but roll with what you have, and things should work out." The Witch got up. "I'm glad we had this little talk. Let's get you home."

They walked to the spot where the magical transporter was, and the Witch said, "I'm sorry I don't have a plain umbrella to lend you. Try walking between the raindrops. It helps. Until we meet again, Mabel Pines, light heart and fair luck be yours."

Mabel had read a little about witches. She smiled as best she could and said, "Blessings be on your cave, and may your luck be bright."

The Witch cackled—musically, but it was an undeniable cackle—and she waved as Mabel vanished up to the outhouse.

"She could have the right stuff, that one," the broom said in a dry-as-dust little voice.

"Oh, hush," the Witch said, but she sounded indulgent.

"I'm just saying. She's not a seventh of a seventh, but she's got Chaos inside her, if I'm any judge. Could take her far, should she be strong enough to harness it."

"What does a broom know?"

"Oh, I've been around. I've got into odd corners in my time. By the way, your husband has dinner ready. Shall we go?"

"I am a bit hungry. What's he cooked?"

The broom quivered. "Just a sec . . . lamb chops with mint sauce . . . roasted baby leeks . . . garlic and tangerine carrots."

"Yum! Let's go before it gets cold then. Home, broom!"

Broom and witch vanished with a pop. Witches don't _have_ to climb on a stick to zoom to wherever they're bound. Not if they're really good at their craft. This one just had to grip the broom firmly, tell it where she wanted to be, and in one instant she was out of the Crawl Space and stepping through her own front door . . . or cave opening, whatever . . . and smelling a wonderful aroma, and her husband came and hugged her and gave her a kiss and asked, "How was work, darling?"

"I think I did some good tonight," the Witch said. "Let's eat, Sweetie. I'm famished."

"Shall I sweep up?" asked the broom.

"Wait until after we eat," the Witch said, but not harshly. The broom could wait. It swept all by itself, automatically. It was a broomba.

* * *

At about the same moment that the Witch popped up in her own home, Mabel arrived in the Outhouse of Mystery, where she heard the steady tap of rain on the roof. She took a deep breath, or as deep as the miasma of the outhouse permitted, and pulling the poncho's hood up, she stepped out into the rain.

She didn't have the knack of walking between the raindrops, but she hurried and got to the Shack not much more soaked than she had been when she'd first descended into the Crawl Space.

But at least the rain was slowly, steadily, almost imperceptibly slackening. So, OK, maybe the Fourth would be rained out. Look on the bright side.

The farmers would have crops to sell, come harvest time. That was good.

The little frogs and fishes would have streams and ponds and the lake to swim in, and the water would be fresh and cool. Hey, not so shabby.

Gravity Falls Falls would be in full flow, and tourists loved having their photos taken against the backdrop. Pretty good for business, that.

And if Grunkle Stan could come through—and she would bet on him against any odds—then the picnic and celebration would be postponed until Saturday, and she and Wendy and Dipper would have the whole day off work, not just half a day. She could live with that.

Best of all, although Mabel regretted having done what she'd done without thinking it through, and although she realized her playing around with magic would cause a lot of people a lot of disappointment, and although she understood that Dipper, with every justification in the world, could tell her, "I told you so—"

"I did real witch magic!" she said aloud.

Then she went into the Shack to dry off, maybe give Teek a late face-time call, and get some sleep before tomorrow brought another day—a full day—of work.

Oh well. If the spell you say, the price you pay.

She could deal with it.

* * *

The End


End file.
